2 Chinese giant pandas destined for San Francisco next year
- Announcement comes as US city’s mayor, London Breed, nears the end of a weeklong trip to China and just days before US secretary of state is expected in Beijing
- Breed says the deal honours deep cultural connections between the two parties
Breed and the China Wildlife Conservation Association confirmed the agreement for what will be the first official giant panda lease for the US tech hub since Washington and Beijing established diplomatic relations.
Breed said on X that the two giant pandas would “honour our deep cultural connections and our Chinese and [Asian-American and Pacific Islander] heritage”.
She thanked the association and China’s National Forestry and Grassland Administration for helping to realise the agreement, saying it was a “collaborative effort requiring months of coordination and advocacy”.
However, China signed a panda lease agreement with San Diego Zoo earlier this year and similar talks were also under way with Washington’s National Zoo.
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Breed’s trip to China began on Saturday and includes stops in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai. She will return to San Francisco on Sunday.
According to her social media posts, Breed met Shenzhen mayor Qin Weizhong, her Guangzhou counterpart Sun Zhiyang, and US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.
She also met Vice-President Han Zheng and vice foreign minister Ma Zhaoxu.
Noting the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden in San Francisco in November, Liu said China and the US should boost cooperation on “trade and investment, science and technology, culture and tourism, and people-to-people exchanges”, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
“The close relationship between China and San Francisco is a vivid portrayal of the close intermingling of interests between China and the US,” Liu said.
Breed said San Francisco would strengthen cooperation with China in various areas, including the controversial sectors of artificial intelligence and electric vehicles.
Pandas coming back to US as China’s ‘envoys for friendship’
Breed’s visit is the latest in a series of high-profile communications between the two countries in recent months.
Xi and Biden spoke on the phone two weeks ago ahead of a visit to China by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and a meeting in Washington this week between Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People’s Bank of China, and Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman.
Blinken will reportedly go to China next week, a trip that China’s foreign ministry said “Beijing welcomes”.
