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Japanese Panda fans gathered Sunday for one last public viewing TokyoTwins Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei return to Ueno Zoo China.
Their departure on Tuesday will leave Japan without a giant panda for the first time in half a century, and there is little chance of getting a replacement because of Tokyo’s ties to Japan. Beijing At its lowest point in years.
China first presented giant pandas to Japan in 1972, a gift intended to mark the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two wary neighbors. These adorable black and white bears instantly won the hearts of the Japanese, and a dozen of their successors have become national celebrities.
The latest departed twin giant pandas drew huge crowds despite a one-minute viewing limit set by the zoo. visitorMany of them held panda-themed toys, called out the bears’ names and captured them on their smartphones as they gnawed bamboo and strolled.
Beijing loans giant pandas to other countries but retains ownership rights, including over the cubs they give birth to. In 2021, Xiaoxiao and his younger sister Lei Lei were born at Ueno Zoo.
When asked about China’s dispatch of new pandas to Japan, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said: “I know that giant pandas are loved by many people in Japan, and we welcome Japanese friends to come to China to visit them.”
Loyal panda fans snap millions of photos
Network engineer Takahiro Takauji’s life involves pandas.
It started 15 years ago, when he visited Ueno Zoo and fell in love with twin giant panda parents Xinxin and Lili, who had recently arrived from China.
“Honestly, the way they shape and move is very cute and interesting,” he told The Associated Press in a recent interview at his home near Tokyo. “Sometimes they’re like babies, and sometimes they’re like old people.”
From then on, daily visits to the zoo became essential. He has taken more than 10 million photos of giant pandas and published several photo books of giant pandas.
On a recent afternoon, Takauji was one of thousands who entered the competitive online reservation system to get one last look at the pandas.
During the one-minute viewing, Gao held the camera high above the other fans and took as many as 5,000 still photos, capturing every move of Xiaoxiao and Lei Lei.
Back home, in a room decorated with dozens of panda mascots and decorations, Gao pores over the day’s fresh photos and uploads them to his blog, “Everyday Panda.”
He had seen the twins since they were born and considered them “like my own children.”
“I never thought that one day giant pandas would disappear from Japan,” he said.
Tensions between Tokyo and Beijing
Japan faces growing political, trade and security tensions with China, angered by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent comments that possible Chinese actions against Taiwan, a democratic island claimed by Beijing, could trigger Japanese intervention.
Relations between Japan and China have been fraught with tension since Japan invaded in the 19th century. Territorial disputes remain in the East China Sea as China’s rise comes with security threats and growing economic influence in the region.
The Japanese government’s top spokesman Minoru Kihara admitted on Thursday that the Japanese consulate in Chongqing has been without a consul for a month due to China’s delay in approving the replacement of the consul.
Pandas have long been part of China’s diplomacy
The giant panda is native to southwestern China and is an unofficial mascot. Beijing lends them to other countries as a symbol of goodwill and as part of research and conservation programs.
On October 28, 1972, the first pair of giant pandas “Kangkang” and “Lanlan” donated by China to Japan arrived in Ueno. This was one month after then Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai signed a joint communiqué on the normalization of relations between the two countries. Japan said it “fully understands and respects” China’s claims to Taiwan, which it calls an “integral part” of its territory.
At that time, China also presented the first batch of giant pandas to other Western countries such as the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
China moved to leasing programs in the 1980s, in which participating overseas zoos pay annual fees for habitat conservation or scientific research to benefit species.
Japan’s panda diplomacy takes a political turn. A plan to bring pandas to the northern Japanese city of Sendai following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster was shelved due to a territorial dispute in 2012.
Giant pandas are loved in Japan
Panda images at Ueno Zoo appear in the form of cookies, candies, stuffed animals, stationery and photo albums. A panda statue stands outside the train station. A department store has a section dedicated to selling panda merchandise.
“The panda is the symbol of Ueno, a star.” Souvenir shop manager Asao Ezure said. “We are worried about how the disappearance of giant pandas will affect us.”
Ezul, who displayed caricatures of Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei on the store sign, said he believed the pandas would come back. “So we’re not going to change the sign.”
Katsuhiro Miyamoto, an economics professor at Kansai University, said not having giant pandas in zoos would cost about 20 billion yen ($128 million) a year.
“If this situation continues for several years, the negative economic impact of not having giant pandas is expected to reach tens of billions of yen,” Miyamoto said in a statement. “For Japanese people who love pandas, myself included, I hope they return as soon as possible.”