BEIJING — San Francisco is the latest U.S. city to prepare to welcome a pair of pandas from China, in a continuation of Beijing’s famous “panda diplomacy.”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the panda loan in Beijing on Friday, alongside officials from the China Wildlife Conservation Association, or CWCA. It will be the first time San Francisco has welcomed the beloved animals long-term — the result of a yearlong advocacy campaign, Breed said.
San Diego previously announced it would welcome two pandas in February.
China is home to the pandas’ only natural habitat and has the most black and white bears in the world. Beijing lends the animals to other countries as a tool for diplomacy and wildlife conservation.
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“San Francisco is absolutely thrilled to welcome giant pandas to the San Francisco Zoo,” said Breed after signing a letter of intent for international cooperation in giant panda conservation.
Breed said the city has been working with its Chinese and Asian communities to advocate for pandas for nearly a year, leading up to a meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders in San Francisco last November, during which U.S. presidents and China came together.
CWCA Secretary-General Wu Minglu said the association will work with San Francisco authorities to prepare for the pandas’ arrival and to ensure technical standards for their conservation.
“We expect a pair of giant pandas to arrive in San Francisco in 2025,” he said.
When San Diego broke the news in February that it would receive a pair of pandas, it was the first time in more than two decades that China had agreed to send pandas to the United States.
Only four giant pandas are currently in the US, all at the Atlanta Zoo. In recent years, China has not renewed loan agreements at zoos in Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee, raising fears that it was ending its historic panda diplomacy with Western nations due to geopolitical tensions.
Black and white bears have been a symbol of friendship between the US and China since Beijing gifted a pair of pandas to the National Zoo in Washington, DC, in 1972, before the normalization of bilateral relations. China later loaned pandas to zoos to help raise cubs and increase the population.
Friday’s announcement comes ahead of a planned visit to China next week by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Washington and Beijing have strengthened their diplomatic exchanges in recent months in an effort to ease escalating tensions. But frictions persist in trade, national security and the divergent positions of countries in conflicts such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
