A special delivery landed in Atlanta on Sunday, three days after Xi Jinping, China’s leader, said his country would soon dispatch “envoys of friendship” to the United States.
Two giant pandas, a male named Ping Ping and a female named Fu Shuang, touched down at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Sunday morning, according to Zoo Atlanta. The bears traveled overnight on a FedEx cargo plane emblazoned with a giant panda snacking on bamboo after leaving a breeding center in Chengdu, in southwestern China.
The duo traveled in custom-built crates under the supervision of Zoo Atlanta animal specialists. “The pandas were the sole cargo aboard the aircraft, accompanied only by fresh bamboo, water, and an assortment of their favorite treats,” according to FedEx.
The delivery of the animals was a gesture of good will from Beijing and came on the heels of Mr. Xi’s visit to the White House last week, the first in over a decade. The Chinese leader met with President Trump and announced that China would send the bears to Zoo Atlanta.
The zoo said last month that it had reached a research agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Association, one of two groups in the country that research pandas and lend them overseas.
According to Chinese state media, the pandas will be on loan for 10 years. Both were born in China in 2020.
Ping Ping and Fu Shuang are now in quarantine at Zoo Atlanta, where they’ll remain under close observation for about a month.
But the zoo was still abuzz Sunday afternoon about the giant pandas — a species the Grant Park attraction hasn’t seen since Ya Lun and Xi Lun left town for the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in 2024.
“Even though we can’t see them today, we know they’re here somewhere,” said Kaori Graybeal, a neuroscientist in Atlanta who came to the zoo with her infant daughter. “The pandas are around!”
Ms. Graybeal had a chance to see the pandas two years ago, just before the big balls of fluff headed back to China.
“They were so cute,” she said, even though “they were just kind of sitting there.”
During the three-day visit to Washington last week, Mr. Xi described the bears as a symbol of friendship between the United States and China.
The lavish ceremonies masked the heightened tensions between the two countries, including over trade practices and Chinese military activity around Taiwan and in the Pacific region. Beyond Mr. Xi’s promise of pandas, the summit ended with few tangible diplomatic outcomes.
Maria Repnikova, a Georgia State University professor with expertise in Chinese political communication, said the panda loan was part of China’s effort to soften its image in the public eye.
“China’s overarching kind of soft power diplomacy is often very rigid,” she said.
“Panda diplomacy is one area where China has been quite successful,” Professor Repnikova added. “It attracts a lot of the American public or young people. It really appeals. It kind of purifies and softens China’s image.”
Zoo Atlanta is one of a handful of institutions in the United States that have hosted pandas over the past half-century, continuing a Chinese tradition of panda diplomacy that stretches back to President Richard M. Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972.
After the first lady, Pat Nixon, told China’s premier, Zhou Enlai, that she loved the animals, Chinese officials sent a male-female pair to the National Zoo in Washington.
Over the next 20 years, the two produced five cubs (none of which survived) and drew crowds of millions, according to the zoo. The program’s success also inspired Chinese officials to send more pandas — the ultimate symbols of soft diplomacy — to zoos in San Diego and Memphis, as well as to ones in other countries.
In addition to being one of Zoo Atlanta’s most adorable draws, the previous giant pandas were the subjects of maternal behavioral research — or mother-cub dynamics — which Ms. Graybeal’s husband, Alan Emanuel, also a neuroscientist, found especially intriguing.
“With their bumbling nature, it’s really interesting how they’re finding the right pieces of food and able to identify exactly what they need to survive,” he said. “But this bonding with the parents and children could be really interesting to compare to how we do that ourselves.”
Ping Ping and Fu Shuang’s arrival on Sunday increased the total number of giant pandas in the United States to six.
In 2024, the Chinese authorities sent a pair to the San Diego Zoo and another to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., ending a monthslong spell during which there were no pandas in the United States.
- Credits: The New York Times
- Authors: Leo Sands and Sean Keenan
- Photo: Ariana Drehsler
