Sobbing Japanese Bid Goodbye to Rented Pandas
For the first time in more than fifty years there will be no pandas in Japan. That’s because five-year-olds Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei, born at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, are being shipped off to China this week. The sibling twins were born to Ri Ri and Shin Shin, who had arrived on loan from China in 2011, and returned there in 2024.
The giant pandas were on loan from the People’s Republic as part of China’s decades-long “panda diplomacy” gambit, intended to foster international good will. But relations between Japan and the PRC have gotten frosty lately, largely because China appears determined to absorb Taiwan, which lies about 60 miles from Japanese territory.
Thousands of people in Japan have lined up to catch a last glimpse of the pandas in recent weeks. One fan, Yukie Kuyama, lined up for five hours to see the animals in early December; then she won a lottery that allowed her one more visit last week. “It feels sad that such cute, innocent animals are being used as a trump card – or even a tool – in diplomacy,” Kuyama told CNN.
Zoos around the world have paid China about a million bucks a year to rent panda couples, while China retains ownership of the animals as well as any resultant offspring, like Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei. The Chinese are expected to use the money on panda conservation in the pandas’ natural habitat – mountain ranges in China’s Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces – but there have been doubts the funding always gets there.
The lack of pandas will cost the local economy dearly in Japan, according to Kansai University economist Katsuhiro Miyamoto, who estimates that the Ueno Zoo – as well as hotels, inns, restaurants, cafes, and souvenir shops in the area – will lose at least ¥15.4 billion ($100 million) a year without the animals.
“If this situation continues for several years, the negative economic impact of having no pandas is expected to reach tens of billions of yen,” Miyamoto said in a university press release. “For panda-loving Japanese, myself included, I hope they return as soon as possible.”
Take a last look at Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei here.
Photo credit: Ueno Zoo
