Panda diplomacy: Washington needs another ‘little miracle’

Miracle baby Xiao Qi Ji and his parents are set to leave the National Zoo in Washington unless Beijing extends the panda loan. Dare we hope that the US and China can put their differences aside?

James David Spellman

Published: 5:30am, 30 Sep 2023

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Once upon a time, when Covid-19 forced the world to shut down and all seemed bleak, a Chinese panda in an American zoo gave birth to a “Little Miracle” – a pink, hairless and blind cub the size of a stick of butter.

For a world in isolation, for people feeling lost, inept, mortal and fearful of destiny, the coming of Xiao Qi Ji – which is Mandarin for “Little Miracle” – on August 21, 2020, revived a feeling of hope and optimism.

We learned the baby was coming mere days before the birth – we couldn’t contain our excitement. There are so many obstacles to the welcoming of a new life when giant pandas have just one chance a year to get pregnant – a precious window of a few days in spring – captive males tend to be uninterested, and false pregnancies are common.

Sadly, many cubs die. And the pregnant Mei Xiang was old at 22, having already delivered six cubs, three of which did not survive. Xiao Qi Ji would be an artificially inseminated baby, conjured up with frozen sperm from the father Tian Tian. Despite pandemic complications, the boy cub would be the first success of such a procedure at an American zoo – the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington.

More than a million bore witness to Xiao Qi Ji’s live-streamed birth; we hoped for a strong future for him. With every bit of progress, from his one-month medical review to his wobbly first steps as a three-month-old, we celebrated.

His adorable personality quickly come into focus: playful, curious, distrustful of surprises like his father, sweet and sassy like his mother. He was weaned and became independent. His slide down the hill during Washington’s first snowstorm last year was pure joy to see. In August, he turned three, a college kid in panda years. Where did the years go? As he devoured his cake of frozen apple and pineapple juice in the torrid heat, who could help but be captivated?

It all harked back to US president Richard Nixon’s monumental trip to Beijing in February 1972 to meet Mao Zedong. Seeing how Nixon’s wife Pat admired the pandas, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai said: “I’ll give you some.”

Lingling and Xingxing arrived several weeks later and lived at the National Zoo in Washington until their deaths in 1992 and 1999 respectively. They were the most popular attraction.

While the gift of pandas was a demonstration of what would become one of China’s most visible and persuasive means of soft diplomacy, what mattered to us was how their lives reflected ours, that we were coping with the same things, like bad weather. And panda bears were being brought back from near- extinction, a victory in an age that saw the end of many plant and animal species.

Our expectations soared with each announcement that Lingling was pregnant, only to collapse when it turned out to be another pseudopregnancy. We mourned the death of her five cubs. Each death left us with difficult questions. What was the zoo doing wrong? How could we reverse the near-extinction of the species? Had we reached the limits of science?

After Lingling and Xingxing died, China provided Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, this time as a loan. This was extended for the third and final time to December 7 this year.

Three-year-old Xiao Qi Ji rolls around in his enclosure on September 23. The zoo has organised farewell events throughout the month with Xiao Qi Ji and his parents set to leave in early December. Photo: Getty Images via AFP

Sadly, we are counting down the days – unless a new agreement can be reached for the family to stay or be replaced with younger pandas. We feel now as we did after each of Mei Xiang’s three surviving cubs – Tai Shan, Bao Bao and Bei Bei – went to China. We hope that US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will agree to meet this autumn and put the pandas high on their agenda.

The pandemic underscored the qualities that make us human, how we need bridges between us, a spirit of generosity and values that affirm that we have a higher purpose. At the height of the pandemic, the world came together to listen Andrea Bocelli sing “Amazing Grace” in an empty Duomo cathedral in the locked down city of Milan.

Now, Washington and panda fans worldwide are coming together in the same way. It is time for China and the United States to see how efforts to nourish humanity are the most powerful diplomacy for a just and peaceful world.

James David Spellman, a graduate of Oxford University, is principal of Strategic Communications LLC, a consulting firm based in Washington, DC