2026-02-01 14:00
publication
2026-02-01 14:00
The last two giant pandas have left Tokyo's Ueno Zoo, returning to China. Their departure ends over 50 years of presence of these animals in Japan. Although the return results from the agreement, it takes place in an atmosphere of increased tensions after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's words about Taiwan.
It is also part of Beijing's instrumental use of the so-called panda diplomacy.
This is the symbolic end of an era. For the first time since 1972, when the People's Republic of China donated the first individuals to Tokyo as a sign of normalization of relations, there will be no panda in Japanese zoos.
In recent days, thousands of Japanese people have crowded the capital's zoo to see twins born in 2021 – Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei – for the last time. There was a feeling in the crowd that the animals had involuntarily become victims of high politics.
– They are animals that give great comfort. Japan needs pandas and I hope that politicians will come up with something, Michiko Seki, one of the people saying goodbye to their favorite animals, told the AP agency.
However, these hopes collide with geopolitical reality. The return of the pandas, originally planned for February, was accelerated, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry, when asked about possible successors, coolly limited itself to inviting the Japanese to visit the animals in China.
Analysts interpret this as a sign of Beijing's dissatisfaction. Tensions between the neighbors rose sharply after Prime Minister Takaichi's statement last November that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute a “situation that threatens the survival” of Japan and justify the intervention of the Self-Defense Forces. Beijing, which considers the island to be its province, reacted with a series of retaliations – from economic ones, including tightening export restrictions, to cultural ones – canceling events with the participation of Japanese artists – and the so-called people-to-people exchanges – limiting the number of flights to Japan and asking people to avoid traveling to that country.
Beijing also used the most effective soft power tool – “panda diplomacy”.
China treats these animals instrumentally – they are a living currencyawarded depending on the political climate for loyalty and good relations or – as in this case – perceived as a signal of dissatisfaction. The mechanism is ruthless: since the 1980s, pandas have no longer been a free gift – like the first ones given by the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, to the Soviet Union in 1957 – but a commodity loaned for an annual fee of approximately $1 million per individual. Meanwhile, those born abroad, like Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei, are contractually owned by China and returned to the country before their fourth birthday.
Leaving the host country by these mammals is also a tangible financial hit. In the case of Japan, according to the estimates of Professor Katsuhiro Miyamoto from Kansai University, their absence from the capital zoo may generate losses for the local economy of 20 billion yen (approx. USD 130 million) annually.
The South China Morning Post reminds that it is not the first time that Beijing has used this tool – in 2012, in response to the escalation of the territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands, China demonstratively canceled the plan to send pandas to the city of Sendai.
Krzysztof Pawliszak (PAP)
krp/ mal/
