Bye-bye, pandas: Amid curdling U.S.-China relations, zoo loses beloved beasts after 51 years - Action News
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Bye-bye, pandas: Amid curdling U.S.-China relations, zoo loses beloved beasts after 51 years

Bye-bye, pandas: Amid curdling U.S.-China relations, the zoo in the U.S. capital has lost its beloved beasts after 51 years. They have been a symbolic barometer of U.S.-China ties. They're now a sign of trouble.

Pandas have been a symbolic barometer of U.S.-China ties. They're now a sign of trouble

Washington, D.C., Zoo loses giant pandas to sour China-U.S. relations

11 months ago
Duration 2:01
Once a symbol of cooperation between China and the U.S., the giant pandas that were the centrepiece of Washington's Smithsonian National Zoo for 51 years are headed back to China. Now some say their departure is a symbol of deteriorating relations between the two countries.

For decades, they were cuddly emblems of global co-operation. Now, they're a bamboo-munching testament to a more turbulent world.

Beloved giant pandas that came to define the zoo in the U.S. capital are gone. All three remaining ones were carted off Wednesday to the airport for a long flight to China.

Thus ended 51years of pandas at Washington's Smithsonian National Zoo, where their enclave was the geographic centre, the top draw andthe heart of the zoo.

Some of the final visitors to see itspandas choked back tears as they bid farewell to creatures they'd come to know by name.

White truck in midst of trail lined by bamboo
A crate carrying one of the pandas, Mei Xiang, is moved out of the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning. (Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images)

"It's sad," said Dina Biblin, as she started to weep, during a visit Tuesday afternoon.

Her decades of living in this area coincided with the presence of pandas. Now retired, Biblin lives in Florida but stops to see them when she's in town.

She's part of a community of panda-watchers who have become friends here; some travel on vacation togetherto aworld-famous panda sanctuary in China, the animals' future home.

Retiree Helen Gonzalez has observed pandasso closely she can tell by the way one eatswhether it's a male, femaleor child. The ones scarfing down the bambooshoots fastest areadult males.

She comes here when she's feeling blue, and they bring a peace and joy to her day: "The pandas have helped me and many others."

But this isn'tentirelya story about animals.

Woman with pictures of pandas on T-shirt
Helen Gonzalez, a Washington retiree, says she often went to see the pandas. They would cheer her up, and she got to know their personalities. (Alex Panetta/CBC News)

A 51-year emblem of China-U.S. relations

It's a story about humans too specifically about the now-deteriorating relationship between humans in the two most powerful nations on Earth.

Pandas have served as a bookend to the China-U.S. relationship, having been part of it fromthe moment the U.S. even had a relationship with the People's Republic of China.

The first pandas arrived at this zoo in 1972, just months before Communist China established its first diplomatic presence in Washington.

They were a direct result of Richard Nixon's history-making trip to China: the U.S. gave two musk oxen as a gift, Chinareciprocated with pandas.

Woman shows panda doll to smiling baby
For children in Washington, seeing pandas has become a traditional highlight of visiting the local zoo. People play with a stuffed panda at the zoo on the final day of viewing Tuesday. (Jim Watson/Getty Images)

News of the gift was broken to reporters by Pat Nixon, the first lady, as they toured a Chinese hotel kitchen; an ensuing report in the New York Times informed readers that pandas werebear-like animals with blackcircled eyes.

American zoos competed for them.

Washington got the first ones, and their arrival was front-page newsright next to the latest moon landing. The creatures melted hearts.

The countries co-operated on a historic conservation effort; it helped pull the puffy bear back from the brink of extinction, shifting it from the endangered-species list to the vulnerable list.

Black and white image of leaders shaking hands
China sent pandas as a gift following then-President Richard Nixon's historic trip to China, where he met Chairman Mao Zedong in 1972. The panda announcement was first made by U.S. first lady Pat Nixon. (Getty Images)

'This is a hard morning'

Brandie Smith said she was trying to focus on the joy of that achievement Wednesday. Otherwise, the head of the zoo's conservation effort had been worrying for days that she'd be a mess when they left, a puddle of tears.

"Everyone keeps asking me how I feel. This is a hard morning," said Smith, director of the zoo's conservation and biology institute.

"It's been a hard week."

Great-power relations have curdled.

Pandas are swiftly disappearing from U.S. zoos and will soon be gone entirely. Leases are expiring in the U.S. without being renewed, and the final U.S.-based pandas set to leave Atlanta early next year.

One longtime China-watcher said it's no accident this is happening now.

Dennis Wilder, a former official at the CIAand the White House, and now a professor at Georgetown University in D.C., is also a parent ofan adult son.

Like virtually every parent in Washington, he holds memories of admiring these animals with his child.

So why are these pandas all being repatriated now?

"Pique at the United States," Wilder replied.

"I call this punitive panda diplomacy rather than panda diplomacy, which was positive. I think this is Chinese overreaction to the situation between the United States and China."

WATCH | Pat Nixon welcomes pandas to the U.S. National Zoo:

Amid growing tensions, Xi and Biden to meet

The countries have a lengthy and growing list of gripes.

For the U.S., it's theft of intellectual property; espionage; fentanyl shipments; rights abuses at home and repression abroad; and increasing belligerence against Taiwan.

For China, the U.S. is a hypocrite when it talks about international norms. It cites U.S. sabotage of the World Trade Organization, the U.S. using itsdollar as a weapon, and the U.S. cutting off exports of semiconductor chips to China.

Both countries increasingly express fear they're stumbling on a path toward war.

High-level meetings were cancelled earlier this yearamid the spy balloonaffair. But the countries are renewing efforts at diplomacy.

U.S. President Joe Biden will meet his counterpart Xi Jinping next week at the Asia-Pacific summit in San Francisco.

Upside-down panda
Giant panda Xiao Qi Ji is among several born on U.S. soil. Seen here Tuesday, he was transported the next day with his parents toward their new home in China. (Jim Watson/Getty Images)

Don't expect miracles, Wilder said. Irritants won't be solved soon; they are serious and complex. The troubling undercurrent, he says, is the countries don't trust each other.

What he's hoping for at that meeting is stabilization, acalming of the waters, before next year. It could be a rough2024, with election-campaign rhetoric in the U.S. and in Taiwan.

A win at that summit, Wilder said, would be the leaders stabilizing conditions for coexistence: maybe China could offer more help in controlling exports of fentanyl-making chemicals, he said, and the U.S. could provide more clarity on its restrictions in technological trade.

A line of people looking at a panda
Some of the final visitors to see the pandas congregate at the zoo on Tuesday, before their departure on Wednesday morning. The departure was expected, but the exact date was not announced in advance. (Jim Watson/Getty Images)

"Neither side is looking for dramatic improvement in the relationship," Wildersaid. "What they want to do is put a floor under it [and keep things from getting worse]."

Back at the zoo, there's now a gigantic empty space where the pandas used to live. It's unclear what will fill itand whether pandas might make a comeback here.

Visitors keep hoping for the best, for the planet as well as the pandas.

Two women shake hands
Smithsonians National Zoo Director Brandie Smith and Chinese Embassy minister Xu Xueyuan shake hands during the panda departure announcement Wednesday. (Reuters)

"Really we're one small world and it seems to be smaller every day," Gonzalez said. "Hopefully we'll try to begin to do better."

Families brought children for one final glimpse.

The future is uncertain

"We're really lucky," said 11-year-old Zayna Ansari, one of the last kids to see them here. "They're probably not going to be here for, like, another 20 years or something."

Others were too late; the zoo never publicly announced the exact departure date, and some locals were surprised by the earlier-than-expected move Wednesday.

And so a mother, father, and child panda were moved in crates onto a forklift, onto trucks, and to the airport for a 19-hour flight. At the airport, journalists asked the pilot if he'd ever flown pandas before; he had not.

Bamboo is transported by forklift to a waiting truck as the giant pandas begin their journey from Washington's National Zoo to China.
Bamboo is transported by forklift to a waiting truck as the giant pandas begin their journey from Washington's National Zoo to China. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

One departing panda was born in the U.S.

Xiao Qi Ji was among a number born on American soil, conceived through artificial insemination; the three-year-old left with his parents, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian.

A Chinese official participated in the departure ceremony; she promised continued collaboration on global conservation efforts.

She did not comment on the prospect of future panda exchanges.

"As a diplomat in Washington, I say to [these animals], 'Goodbyeand bon voyage'," said Xu Xueyuan, an official at the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

"As a Chinese government official, I say to them, 'Welcome back.'"

Plane lifts from runway
A plane takes off as it transports the final remaining pandas at Washington's National Zoo toward China, at Dulles International Airport in Virginia on Wednesday. (Jim Watson/Getty Images)