Last Of Japan’s Pandas Are Heading Home To China Amid Severing Ties
Hundreds of people in Japan have gathered within the past couple of weeks to say goodbye to the country’s last pair of pandas before they went back home to China this week, leaving the nation without any of the bears for the first time in 50 years.
Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao are the panda twins who have been living at the Ueno zoological gardens since their birth. Now, four-years-later, they’ve been transported back to China via truck. Many fans of the pair have been left saddened and disappointed by this move, as they’ve grown to love the furry twins.
The media spoke to Nene Hashino, a woman wearing a panda-themed jacket while holding a stuffed bear toy towards the end of Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao’s stay in Japan, who said that she’s been “coming to watch them since they were born. It feels like my own children are going somewhere far away. It’s sad.”
The pandas’ return to China was suddenly announced just last month after a diplomatic spat occurred. Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi recently hinted that Tokyo could intervene militarily in the event of an attack on Taiwan, and her comment provoked a strong reaction from Beijing, which regards Taiwan as its own territory.
The bears were loaned to Japan as a part of China’s “panda diplomacy” program, and was known to be a symbol of friendship and peace between Beijing and Tokyo since they first created ties in 1972.
The return of Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao came a month before their loan period expired, according to the Tokyo metropolitan government, which operated Ueno zoo.
“According to the relevant agreement between China and Japan, the giant pandas who were living in Japan, Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei, today began their return trip to China,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, said this week.
“As always, we welcome the Japanese public to come see giant pandas in China.”
Japan has also supposedly been seeking the loan for a new pair of pandas. The public opinion, however, doesn’t fully support a new loan. The Asahi Shumbun newspaper showed that 70% of those surveyed did not think the government should negotiate with China on the lease of new pandas, with 26% supporting the lease.
As a sendoff, on Sunday the Ueno zoo invited 4,400 winners of an online lottery to see the panda twins for the last time. Fans wore panda-themed clothes, hats, patches, and stuffed animals as they lined the streets for hours to say their last goodbye.
Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao were delivered in 2021 by their mother Sin Sin, who arrived to Japan in 2011 and was returned to China in 2024 due to her declining health.
Since last year, China has been discouraging citizens from traveling to Japan over claims of deteriorating public security and criminal acts against Chinese nationals in the nation. Beijing has also reportedly begun closing off exports to Japan of rare-earth products that are integral for the production of electric cars and missiles, according to reports.
On the other end, China may not be politically motivated when it comes to the removal of the twin pandas, as they often remove their pandas from foreign countries after a series of months to years, according to Masaki Ienaga, a professor at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University who is also an expert in east Asian international relations.
“Other countries used animals as tools of diplomacy, including Thailand with its elephants and Australia with its koalas. But pandas are special. They have strong customer-drawing power, and … they can earn money,” Ienaga said.
“If you talk about [Chinese] politics, the timing of sending pandas is what counts, and pandas could return to Japan if bilateral ties warm.”
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.