Daughters and Sons Guest Event: Panda Diplomacy—China's Soft Power in Black and White

TRANSCRIPT
 

SMITH: Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. We’re going to get started. Thank you for being quiet so quickly.

You guys are, like, the best behaved audience ever. I feel like if we need some animal trainers then I’m going to have the folks who run this come in because apparently people listen to them really well.

So I am—my name is—I’m Dr. Brandie Smith. I am the John and Adrienne Mars director of Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.

So when a lot of people think of us, first of all, they don’t realize we’re Smithsonian. So we are—when Smithsonian describes it they’re always, like, we have, like, nineteen museums and however many breeding centers and a zoo.

So we are the zoo part of Smithsonian, and it’s not just the facility here in Washington, D.C. We’ve got, like, this hundred and seventy-five-acre zoo here that’s open to the public but we also have about 3,200 acres in Front Royal, Virginia. So it’s this large kind of breeding and research complex in Virginia and it’s really cool because we have all these species.

We have labs out there but we also—it’s a living campus so we’re actually doing research and conservation, like, onsite in the field there and it’s really exciting, and we also have a presence in over forty countries around the world.

So we do conservation work in the field. We do things in Montana, in Kenya, in China, all over. So we have are—the species here are essentially representatives for all of the work that we do around the world.

We’ve got thousands of species, about 3,000 species here from—about 3,000 animals here from about 400 different species but what do you think the one animal that everyone wants to talk about is?

Yes? Any ideas?

Q: The pandas.

SMITH: Yes, the pandas. Anybody want to guess as to what the second most kind of, I guess, popular animal is?

Q: Red pandas.

SMITH: Red pandas. You guys are sticking with the panda. You’re leaning in. You’re doubling down.

Anybody else?

Q: Elephants.

SMITH: Elephants. Surprisingly enough, the questions we get the most are on—or the inquiries we get the most, snakes.

Yeah. So I don’t know if because people want to know—they’re, like, oh, I might see some snakes or, like, oh, I might see some snakes.

So whatever reason pandas to snakes. So I love the kind of diversity of our audience. So there’s that.

So I’ll talk about pandas. No more snakes. That’s for next time. So our panda program has been around for over fifty years, right? Over fifty years a conservation program focused on a single species.

I would say it is arguably, maybe inarguably, the most successful single species conservation program in terms of longevity, success, impact out there. So I’ll leave it at arguably. I have scientists in the room. Yeah, OK. (Applause.)

And it’s not just because it’s everything a conservation program should be from the animal perspective, right—saving these species in the wild. It’s not just because it’s focused on animals. Because it’s also focused on building bridges between people, between countries, and between culture, that’s what made this program so successful.

A lot of people ask me, why do you think pandas are so popular? Like, why do we love them so much? Well, first of all, they’re adorable, right? Like, I’ve been here for seventeen years. I just passed my seventeen-year mark, and every time I see them I’m, like, damn, they are still just as cute as the first day that I saw them. And they’re hypnotic. You can’t stop watching them.

But I also think it’s because we are all involved in their conservation. So because everybody’s so excited about the species, they’re so engaged in it, they become part of the conservation. Even if you just come to the zoo and see them and you buy a T-shirt or a hot dog or something the money that you are spending is going directly to supporting the conservation of the species in the wild. So we are all part of their success. By your interest and engagement, we’re all part of their success.

And I would say, finally, I think pandas, to me, are a story of joy, of optimism, and of hope, and I think that is kind of in short supply these days. But I also think that it shows that if you have the best people in the world working to care for these animals, working to save the species, and everyone is engaged and willing to kind of put down the questions of why, so we’re willing to build these people-to-people bridges to save this species and we’re going to think about it on that level, then you can be successful.

So with that, I will leave you to fill the rest of your evening with this joy, this optimism, and this hope with this incredible panel here. Thank you for being here. (Applause.)

GRIFFIN: Well, thank you very much, Brandie.

I’m so happy to be here as part of the Daughters and Sons Series “Panda Diplomacy: China’s Soft Power in Black and White.” I don’t want to date myself but I remember in 1972 when Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling arrived in Washington, D.C., and they were very much a part of my childhood here in D.C.

I am Jennifer Griffin, chief national security correspondent for Fox News. Welcome again to today’s special Council on Foreign Relations meeting in collaboration with the Smithsonian National Zoo. I’ll be presiding over today’s discussion.

The audience today consists of Council members and their children, and they will be joining both by Zoom and here in the auditorium.

Before we begin I want to thank the Marc Haas Foundation and the Stanley S. Shuman Family Foundation for their support of the Daughters and Sons Series, and thank you to the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute for their collaboration with this event.

I would like to begin introducing my esteemed panel. Bryan Amaral is the senior curator here at the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. He’s in charge of animal care sciences.

Rush Doshi is C.V. Starr senior fellow for Asia studies and director of the China Strategy Initiative for the Council on Foreign Relations. He was at the National Security Council for three and a half years under the Biden administration, speaks fluent Mandarin, and has negotiated with the Chinese though, he told me, not about these pandas, but he’ll explain.

And Melissa Songer is the conservation ecologist who—you’ve been here almost twenty-five years at the Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. And I forgot to mention Bryan has overseen more than eleven live elephant births, so that we will get to in a moment.

So pandas have always served as instruments of soft power. Today we’ll discuss the history and strategic use of panda diplomacy, what it means to host a panda, and how these symbolic gestures lead to better international relations and bilateral relations.

Rush, why don’t you start us off with what is panda diplomacy? Take us back to 1972 and explain the history and how the pandas broke the ice in twenty-five years of sort of frozen relations between the U.S. and China.

DOSHI: Well, first of all, let me just say thanks to all of you for coming. I know you’re here to see the pandas and, certainly, not to hear about the history of foreign policy from me but that’s totally fine. I’m going to offer just some very brief comments. I’m really excited to hear from Bryan and Mel personally.

But let me just start by saying, you know, pandas are kind of soft power. That’s a phrase many of us have heard about. But pandas are actually quite soft. That’s one of their unique attributes when it comes to soft power, and I think that they’re also quite powerful.

The experience for many of us just now seeing the pandas, I think, proves it, right? The story that I was going to tell very quickly, and I’ll do the history, was about my own experience in the Biden administration, you know, dealing with the panda issue.

Now, you may remember in 2023 it was a sad time when we heard the pandas were leaving Washington, D.C., and, really, for the first time since 1972, I think, we weren’t going to have pandas in the Capitol. And it was—timing was very interesting because it happened just a month before President Biden and President Xi were going to have a huge meeting in November, and both sides were trying to turn up the pressure a little bit to get a better deal in that meeting. And the pandas left and the question we got over and over and again was, are you going to ask China to send the pandas back?

And so we really had to think exactly in the negotiations how much will the pandas play a role, and the truth was we made the decision that as important as the pandas were it was an issue to be handled by the Smithsonian and others, not necessarily by the White House, and we decided to stay out of it and focus on other important issues like fentanyl, military diplomacy, artificial intelligence, and nuclear weapons.

But I have to say right now, having just come from taking my daughter to see the pandas up close it’s hard to say that that was—if I had seen the pandas right before the negotiations—(laughter)—I don’t know if it would have gone—I would have had to harden my heart. It would have been tough.

And that’s something the Chinese count on, right? And so the pandas, as cute as they are, are also a tool of politics and, very briefly, they go back to the Tang Dynasty. You know, a long time ago pandas were sent to Japan to seal relations between China and Japan. And later on, you know, when China was embroiled in a civil war the nationalist party that ran China sent pandas to America to thank us for our support as China resisted Japan’s invasion.

And then when Mao took over China he sent pandas to the Soviet Union in 1957 to basically say, look, I want to celebrate your revolution. This is the year—this is the fortieth anniversary of that revolution. Here’s some pandas. And I think Stalin or Khrushchev—I’m trying to remember—appreciated the gesture very much.

And, of course, then when the U.S. normalized relations with China in 1972 they sent pandas as well to the United States—the ones that you mentioned—and a big part of that was because Pat Nixon, the First Lady, went to China, went to the Beijing zoo, saw the pandas and remarked upon how cute they were.

Zhou Enlai, the premier under Mao, a man with an attention to detail and a good eye for diplomacy, said, OK, we’re going to send you the pandas, and the rest is sort of history. At its peak I think we had maybe fifteen pandas in the United States, but at the time where we were negotiating with the PRC in 2023 the risk was that we would have zero.

And so that is how quickly things have changed. Whenever relations are good it’s easier to get, I think, pandas from any countries. Whenever relations are bad they tend to make it harder to keep them.

GRIFFIN: And I seem to remember, Rush, that what the U.S. sent back and returned to China were two musk oxen, Milton and Matilda. I’m not sure who got the better deal in 1972.

Bryan—

DOSHI: The Russians sent a bear back, by the way. In 1957 they sent a Russian bear to the Beijing Zoo.

GRIFFIN: All right.

Well, Bryan, explain what it was like when Mei Xiang and Tian Tian and their cub left in November 2023. What did it feel like here at the zoo?

AMARAL: Different. I mean, there were a lot of people who were pretty upset. There were a lot of people who had been here. So we have a staff member here that has thirty years. She’s been here thirty years this year and she’s worked with every single panda that we’ve had here including the tail end of Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing’s tenure here.

So it was upsetting. You know, I mean, there were a lot of people that we—you know, people get attached to them and we do as well, certainly the people that work with them every day but the community and, frankly, because of our sort of stature the country, really.

I mean, there were other zoos that had pandas but, you know, I tell folks that regardless of what administrations the pandas are usually the second most famous residents of D.C. So there’s a lot of people who know them, identify with them, and, obviously, miss them when they left.

I must say that it was a long process so I was probably—don’t tell anyone. I was slightly happy that it was finally kind of over. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of work to take care of pandas but it’s a lot of work to get them back home and it’s a lot of work to get them back over here.

So it was—it’s different and, certainly, the zoo was different, and we had many, many people who came still and ask, where are the pandas? Where are the pandas?

So we had pretty much a constant reminder that they were gone. We knew that, of course, we wanted to get them back as quickly as possible and, thankfully, we were able to do that in pretty short order.

We were without pandas for about eleven months, which was—and it was a long eleven months and, quite honestly, I mean, you all are here to hear about the pandas and there was a palpable difference. I mean, our attendance was different.

We lost attendance because of this. You know, we’re not the only zoo that has had them here but this zoo, in particular the Smithsonian, we’ve become synonymous with them because of our long history and, you know, back from pandas from the ’70s and beyond.

So it was a long eleven months and it was pretty awesome when they came back, and you all got to get a taste of that tonight.

GRIFFIN: The Chinese ambassador is fond of saying that he’s one of two Chinese ambassadors here in Washington, D.C.

Mel, tell us a little bit about how you prepared for the return of or the delivery of Bao Li and Qing Bao.

SONGER: Well, actually, Bryan’s probably better in terms of the return and preparing the zoo to speak about that.

GRIFFIN: OK. Bryan, why don’t you catch us up on that? And then I’ll come to you, Mel.

AMARAL: Yeah, happy to.

So, obviously, the minute—as we prepared for them to leave we were already in preparations for them to return and one of the things that we did, and I don’t know how—anybody—everyone been here before?

So you may have noticed that the panda facility looks a little bit different. So we did some pretty significant renovations in there in a sort of tight timeframe, which is not easy to do. Doing big jobs in short amount of times in the federal government is not something that normally happens but we were able to pull it off.

And so we gave sort of a, you know, extreme home makeover to the panda house during that time as well as working with—and Mel can speak to a lot of the preparations we did with our Chinese colleagues about arranging to get them back. And then, of course, the actual process of getting them here, which is a whole other months-long process with partners from FedEx who actually, as you saw the Panda Express, you know, left and then, obviously, came back.

So all of those things were happening in that eleven-month time frame. So although it was sort of a long period of time we were—it felt like we were without pandas, we crammed a lot of things in in that eleven months to get them back here and we’re all extremely happy that we were able to do that.

GRIFFIN: Mel, you’ve been working with pandas for many years now. Tell us what makes them different, difficult, and also, you know, there’s an issue of fertility and how do you go about breeding these pandas in captivity.

What tricks has the National Zoo learned over time and do you consider pandas to be endangered at this point?

SONGER: That’s a lot of questions.

So I think, you know, the great thing about pandas is that everyone really has a strong will to help them survive in the wild and also under human care as well. So you kind of already—in a lot of the species I work on we have to do a lot of work getting people on board, getting support, getting funding. That’s not so much an issue with pandas.

At the same time, they’re very high profile so we’re in the limelight and a lot of times there are stories and things that come out that aren’t accurate and so we have to deal with, you know, as an ecologist things that I don’t normally have to deal with. So that’s part of the challenge of having them.

GRIFFIN: What are some of the rumors you’ve had to shoot down?

SONGER: Well, I think one, as just some context around—there was a story about the Chinese were recalling the pandas because it came to—most of the U.S. holding zoos got agreements at a similar time and so our agreements were expiring also in the same about one- to two-year time period.

So the return of pandas from the National Zoo, from San Diego, from Memphis, and from Atlanta, those were all planned a long time in advance, and we were working to get new agreements but those weren’t in place. So it kind of seemed like all the pandas were leaving and we weren’t allowed to have pandas anymore.

So that wasn’t the case. But—so that’s one of the challenges we’ve had to deal with.

GRIFFIN: It was really that the lease had run out, correct?

SONGER: Right. So we have agreements.

So, you know, when we had the gift of the pandas with Chairman Mao and Nixon that was a gift, but what we had as of 2000 Mei Xiang and Tian Tian was an agreement. So we had a ten-year agreement that we were able to extend and keep them for twenty-three years, basically.

But at some point they’re at an age where it’s time for them to go back to China. They’re at an age where they could potentially be passing away and they want them to be in China when that happens. So—

GRIFFIN: So I’m going to come back to you about the fertility issues.

But, Rush, talk to us about that tense moment where there were these rumors that China—I mean, did you think there was any punitive nature to what was going on in relations with regards to the pandas?

DOSHI: You know, I think sometimes that’s definitely, you know, observable. When we were discussing these issues we got the impression that they could have been more flexible on some of those arrangements but they chose not to be, and they knew that there was a public relations hit for the administration in part when the pandas would leave. They knew we’d get the questions and we’d get the questions from the press, “Are you going to ask President Xi for the pandas?”

And one of the risks that you face in a diplomatic situation like that is if you focus on the pandas—as important as they are to folks here, this institution, and all of us in the audience and people who see them, it’s also important to keep in context the other really important issues in the relationship with China and how do you square all those, right?

They were, clearly, linking pandas to other elements of the diplomacy, which was a little unusual. They’d say, well, you know, we might be able to help you with the pandas if you can do X, Y, and Z.

And so that’s real. You know, it is the case that when they’ve recalled pandas from other countries it’s often been because of political turmoil and sometimes it just means they’re not as flexible as they could otherwise be.

And I’ll say one last thing. You know, on the rumors point, one of the challenges that we faced and that the Chinese government faced is there were some rumors spread about the pandas taken care of in—I guess it was in Tennessee? Yes, in the Tennessee facility. And right, you know, at that time there was a panda with a skin condition so the panda looked patchy.

The Chinese media, fanned by the state and a lot of social media, were suggesting that the panda was mistreated by the U.S. government. It became a stand-in for the idea that Americans were trying to bully China, and when that went viral it reduced the negotiation space for the government in China when it came to handling this issue here in Washington.

And so we saw some of that up close. We felt it when we were dealing with them. They may have been shining us on a bit, and we thought correctly that the right thing to do is to take this out of the political channel and leave it to others to discuss. It didn’t have to be a White House issue.

But I will say even in China there’s public opinion about the pandas and they’re very fiercely protective of their pandas. They see them as a national symbol, and it can be very challenging if they think they’re being mistreated for us to make progress in a negotiation.

GRIFFIN: It sounds a little bit like how some countries use hostages in negotiations.

So, Bryan, we’ll stay away from politics with you and I just would like to hear more about how you care for the pandas and this issue of culture shock and how do you avoid culture shock when they come here. How do you integrate them in and how did you—you had to quarantine them. What were some of the procedures you had to go through?

AMARAL: So, yeah, quarantine is a culture shock for everyone. So I tell folks we’re still in the—I mean, so they’ve been here since October but we’re still experiencing all of our firsts. It’s our first spring and it’ll be our first summer.

Pandas are not particularly fond of the heat so one of the things you’ll see in the indoor areas where they have it’s—the air conditioner is on blast all the time. So if it’s above seventy degrees they have access inside.

So, again, like I said, we’re still going through our time of firsts. The staff is still getting to know the pandas. The pandas are getting to know the staff. Of course, they came here, a different place, different climate, different bamboo, different all the things.

So we take—obviously, we take time. We take cues from them. Our staff is great. They have a lot of experience with pandas. We sent staff over to get to know the pandas when we selected the pair that we ended up with.

So many of you know that Bao Li, our male, he’s actually the grandson of Mei and Tian, the two not original pandas but the pandas that went back in 2023. His mother was born here and then went back to China so he has a connection to those pandas as well, which is pretty neat.

But, again, as we continue to go through our first full year everybody sort of had culture shock but at this point I think everybody’s doing great. You know, they’ve established routines. The keepers have established routines with them.

They’re starting to understand their behavior, their quirks, their personalities, and all those sorts of things and, you know, if you come here on any day of the week they’re doing fantastic and what’s really cool for me—and I don’t spend much time with the pandas on a frontline basis, you know, doing the frontline care—but their personalities are so distinct and so different.

So it’s really cool to be a part of that, even on the periphery as I am. I tell my kids I manage the people that manage the animals, which isn’t nearly as fun as feeding the pandas and doing all the things.

But it’s really fun and for me a career highlight to be able to be part of bringing them back, watch those relationships develop, watch them blossom, and then be able to share that with everybody who comes to the zoo. It’s pretty—it’s a once in—I don’t know, maybe once in a career thing. I’ll let you know. (Laughter.)

GRIFFIN: And if a baby panda is born in captivity it’s supposed to be sent back to China within three years. Is that—

AMARAL: Correct. So at this point, as Mel alluded to, we all kind of have the same agreement and pandas that are born here typically are—have to be back in China by the time of their fourth birthday.

We’ve been late sometimes. This last pair and their cub that went back he was a little early so he was three. But, yeah, so typically that’s part of the agreement is that they go back by the time they’re four, and as part of that as well, as Mel alluded to, is that—you know, it’s funny we talk about the pandas going back and why it happened.

Well, we extended our agreement for many years past the original ten-year agreement and, again, while they were older, still very healthy, they were able to travel, which was great.

And so when we start to talk about, oh, are they going back because of that, I’m not involved in many White House dealings with China, right, and so, yes, I was very involved in that. So, obviously, that’s not something that I normally deal with. It just happened to be that the pandas were, you know, kind of lined up at the same time.

But, again, our pandas were here, essentially, so these two that we have now are currently on a ten-year agreement. So if you do the math our last pair were here for thirteen years past the original ten. So, ultimately, all good things must come to an end. And, by the way, they’re doing great in China but it was time to start a new chapter here.

GRIFFIN: Mel, are pandas considered endangered now?

SONGER: Pandas are no longer considered endangered as of 2016.

(Audio break.)

GRIFFIN: (In progress following audio break)—the arrangements that a lot of the reasoning for sending pandas here, in addition to soft power and diplomacy, was also don’t you have some very special fertility techniques that you’ve evolved here?

SONGER: Well, there—so for the IUCN that is the governing body that decides whether an animal is on the endangered species list or critically endangered and so forth, their considerations are not related to any populations under human care per se. It’s more connected with the animals that are in the wild, the numbers, whether they’re increasing, the condition of their habitat. All those things are taken into account.

In the case of the giant panda the fertility of the in situ population was critical—or of the—actually, the population under human care was really critical because in the late ’90s at that time over half of any of the pandas that were ever under human care in China were captured from the wild because that population was not reproducing and not self-sustaining.

So a lot of—actually, several National Zoo scientists and veterinarians got involved in a biomedical survey and worked with China to survey. About half of their animals at the time, which was a hundred and twenty-six, was all the animals that were in any facilities in China.

So very few were reproducing, and so by doing—through the biomedical survey and understanding their health and improving techniques around their reproduction we were able to rapidly increase the success of having pandas in zoos and breeding centers, and then as that success increased then there was a huge drop off in the number of pandas that were captured from the wild.

GRIFFIN: And how many pandas are alive right now in the world?

SONGER: Right now there are about 770 under human care and around 2,000 in the wild.

GRIFFIN: And when do you expect Qing Bao to get pregnant or what would be reasonable to expect?

SONGER: Yes, he’s already showing signs of interest but I think from four—between four and seven is the time they usually come into age to breed. It varies on individuals.

GRIFFIN: Bryan, anything you’d like to tell us about how you deal with the fertility issues here with the pandas?

AMARAL: So, first, two pandas fall in love. (Laughter.)

GRIFFIN: Sounds like a Disney movie.

AMARAL: Yeah. Well, so it’s great because, obviously, through the last fifty years we’ve sort of cracked the code on how to get pandas pregnant when they don’t do it themselves and our previous pair proved themselves to be rather inept at it—(laughter)—and so we helped, and we helped pretty successfully. I mean, we had a number of cubs here, obviously, that lived to adulthood and are now reproducing and, again, we have some of the fruits of that labor here.

But as Mel mentioned, it seems our female is a bit of a, I’ll say, an early bloomer. She had very strong signs of estrus, which is the first step in making more pandas at some point, but we’re probably a couple of years away. So pandas are only, basically, fertile for a very short period of time every year, only a few days.

So, anyway, we were able to watch, as I said earlier, about, you know, all of the first occurrences. We watched that kind of happen and we’re, like, no, it’s early. That can’t happen yet. She’s only three. Well, sure enough, it happened.

So males can be a little bit late bloomers. As far as interest, sure. Ability to make another panda, maybe not so much. So we’re going to keep an eye on all that stuff, and our keepers are very in tune with the behaviors and what—sort of normal panda things.

There’s a funny story about me. So when I came here never worked with pandas before and they’re this very mysterious, high-profile, as Mel said, species. And so I was super excited but also pretty intimidated. I’d been working in zoos for over twenty years at the time and super intimidated to come into a panda program and I don’t know anything about this stuff.

But they are, actually, very honest. So when the time comes, again, as we experienced this year we’re, like, is that it? You know, behavior changes quite a bit and we have very smart scientists that are doing work for us, watching some of the hormone markers and things like the—and through blood and urine and other things.

But we mainly watch the behavior. So we’re able to watch those things kind of happen at the same time, which is really, really cool. During COVID our last—so Xiao Qi Ji was the cub that went back with the pandas in 2023 and he was conceived during COVID—the height of COVID. So all of the tools that we normally had at our disposal we used to set up a lab here at the zoo to run samples so that we could time the artificial insemination perfectly.

We would do multiple procedures to sort of make sure that all of our efforts, you know, were kind of aimed at those three days. Well, unfortunately, because of COVID we weren’t able to do that. At the time we were not able to share lab space. We had to rotate who’s doing the lab. We couldn’t come down here because everybody had to stay apart from each other.

So we said—and we knew that Mei was older—actually, you know, quite old to be a reproductive panda. But we said, you know what? This is the last year. We’re going to try. It’s COVID. We’ll throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks, right?

So, basically, we went purely off of behavior. We did not get any fresh samples from the male. We thawed a frozen sample from the freezer, one. We usually do multiple days in succession. We’re, like, we can say we tried.

So we thawed a sample. We did one procedure and what do you think happened? Our little miracle came both—you know, both because of the—you know, mom’s age and the lack of all the tools to diagnose estrus and figure out when the best timing was.

What was really cool was we actually have—so mom has to be asleep for that procedure and so our pandas are trained to do lots of things—voluntary blood samples and everything. When they go through estrus I always say they lose their hearing and they forget everything they learned. They come back but they typically don’t really respond the same way. They have other things on their mind.

So while we had her anesthetized for her procedure we took a blood sample, and I ran to the elephant barn and we have blood tests that we use. They’re actually for dog(s) and cats but we use them for elephants and for pandas when you’re in the middle of a pandemic.

And so I put the blood sample on the test and it was red hot. So purely on the observations of our keepers and without the super smart people that usually help us through this process we were able to get it done, and so that’s pretty amazing.

So he’s not just a miracle because, you know, mom’s age, and there was all these things sort of working against us, and that was the first year that I had been here that we’d actually conceived a cub despite all the challenges. So that was pretty awesome.

GRIFFIN: That’s amazing. A COVID miracle.

Rush, tell me, do you think that the U.S. is losing the soft power competition with China? And go back to 2005. China gave Taiwan a gift of a panda, which became somewhat controversial.

DOSHI: Yeah. You know, I think now that we have the pandas we’re in good shape. We should be fine.

But I just wanted to say one thing very quickly. Just hearing Bryan and Mel it really reminds you that there’s just such expertise and care for these pandas in the United States, and one of the things that I was really struck by is when this controversy broke out about the pandas in Memphis—were they mistreated—you know, the netizens in China on social media would be critical but the scientific community in China really said, no, no, these pandas are being treated well.

And I think one of the positive parts about panda diplomacy is the wonderful way in which these professional communities interact across borders which, you know, you don’t get, in a lot of ways, in diplomacy these days, and to see them come together to engineer something pretty incredible, which is to take a species that was endangered off the endangered list that’s a U.S.-China—it is an international triumph. It’s an international success.

And so pandas, yes, there’s an element of politics every now and then but there’s also an element of cooperation in the sustainment of this group, and just hearing you both speak struck me.

As for, you know, soft power, I mean, yeah, we have some challenges on that front, I think, and we’ll continue to have some. As for the Chinese, they’ll continue to use pandas to—you know, to improve their position. There’s pandas in twenty, I think, countries around the world right now—Mexico and Canada, France, Japan, and, yes, in places claimed by China like Taiwan as well.

And so that’s a very interesting fact. Maybe it’ll be more in the future, and I think that’s positive.

GRIFFIN: If I’m remembering correctly, in 2005 when China gifted a panda to Taiwan the name that was given to the panda was Reunion or something like that. Do you recall this?

DOSHI: You know, I actually didn’t know the name.

GRIFFIN: Oh, OK.

DOSHI: That’s interesting. I’ll have to go back and do my homework.

GRIFFIN: And the Taiwanese, if I remember correctly, they rejected at first until it got sorted out. But it became a diplomatic incident and a—so the panda diplomacy is just multilayered and fascinating.

Go ahead.

DOSHI: I think that wasn’t even the first panda that had been sent to Taiwan so there’s an interesting history there as well.

GRIFFIN: Well, I think we can go to some questions.

Let’s see here. So at this time I’ll invite members and their guests to join us in our conversation with our experts here.

A reminder that this portion of the meeting is not for attribution, so we have a couple of mics in the audience. If you want to put your hand up and introduce yourself we’ll take your questions, and if it’s for a specific panelist let us know.

Who would like to start?

Q: Hello. My name is Bryce Barros. I’m an associate fellow at GLOBSEC.

To answer your question, the pandas names were Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan. In Mandarin Tuan Yuan means reunion. I was living in Taiwan when that happened. So just to point that out.

GRIFFIN: Oh, that’s fascinating. Thank you. Thank you.

There we go. Put your hand up high so that our people with microphones can see you.

Q: Hi. Thanks so much. Sam Dreiman, term member at CFR. I lived in Beijing for a number of years.

My question is about pandas in other zoos and institutions. How does negotiations for pandas in other zoos operate and does the White House get involved in that?

I remember last year the mayor of San Francisco took a trip to China, visited a number of cities, and her number-one success story coming back to San Francisco was we got the pandas to come back to San Francisco.

So I’m very curious to hear how negotiations, you know, in San Diego or Atlanta, other—San Francisco, how did—for their pandas how did those go about and where does the White House or the Smithsonian stand in those negotiations?

SONGER: I can’t really speak to any other zoo and what they are doing but, you know, we work directly with an NGO, the China Wildlife Conservation Association, to work out our agreement, and more or less I think most of the agreements—all the zoos in the U.S. and internationally pretty much say the same thing, and I don’t know anything about the White House.

DOSHI: So no, there’s not a usual role. Actually, we’re in touch with—we were in touch with the Smithsonian on some of this in November and October of 2023 and before that. But, in general, from what I understand, you know, the hope was to leave this in other channels, not to have this be a political thing, not to have it be a White House thing.

I will note that, you know, even though we didn’t make this a point of negotiation in 2023 our friends in China were very keen to provide the pandas anyway because they see the value of having them in the nation’s capital, and at the same time Governor Gavin Newsom was able to have a conversation with President Xi and was able to secure pandas returning, I guess, to one of the zoos in California.

So whether that, you know, greased the skids for other conversations that occurred that probably was the case. But, in general, these happen in other channels. The political channel can sometimes make it easier but it’s not principally the place where this is discussed.

And if you look at the timing of a lot of times that, you know, pandas are provided to other countries it’s often around big visits, trade agreements, et cetera. That’s when they’ll make the announcement.

GRIFFIN: Is there a U.S. equivalent to pandas that we use in soft diplomacy?

DOSHI: Hollywood. I don’t know. (Laughter.)

GRIFFIN: OK.

DOSHI: Yeah, we don’t really—I don’t think people are—you know, we’re not sending bald eagles overseas but maybe our friends at the Smithsonian know best what we have to offer.

SONGER: I mean, we—as far as I know that’s the only animal that we’re negotiating and have an agreement for at the Smithsonian.

AMARAL: Well, and as far as the White House is concerned I am not one to speak on that. What I will say, though, is that there’s been a long history, as we mentioned, with First Ladies involved in pandas and we’ve had some involvement throughout the years with First Ladies in helping name the pandas, and you saw Dr. Biden was part of the announcement saying that they’re coming back.

So as far as that, it’s a little bit of a peripheral, more of a fun thing than has anything to do with actually negotiations or anything like that. But we’re always happy to have them come and hang out with the pandas.

Q: Hi. My name is Antonio and I was just wondering if we can’t give pandas American names is it possible if we can give an American name and translate it in Chinese?

AMARAL: I missed the last part. An American—

DOSHI: Could you give them an American name and translate it into Chinese.

AMARAL: Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, as far as the naming is concerned, so the fun part—when we’d get the pandas they were already named. So the great part is when we have cubs—and I say when we have cubs because we will have cubs—we get to sort of help with the naming and usually we do that in conjunction with our Chinese colleagues and typically there is a(n) important meaning behind the name.

So, as I mentioned, Xiao Qi Ji was our little miracle and the reason—as I mentioned what those reasons were. So we have conversations because there’s a cultural importance to the naming and, obviously, we want it to be appropriate for the animals. We do get to help with that. So if you have any ideas you can mail them to me and we’ll—I’ll put them in the folder and—

GRIFFIN: What are the meanings of the current two?

AMARAL: Oh, my goodness, I think you might have just stumped me. I’m actually—

GRIFFIN: Rush, do you know?

DOSHI: I don’t know.

GRIFFIN: OK.

SONGER: It’s green treasure. They’re both treasure derivatives. They’re both—

AMARAL: Yeah, there’s a lot of—one’s green treasure and—yeah, there’s a lot of Baos around here. So, yes, green treasure, and I’ll Google it when nobody’s looking. (Laughter.)

GRIFFIN: OK.

Q: Hi. Simone Williams, term member.

In a day how much bamboo do the pandas eat and where are you getting and storing the bamboo?

AMARAL: Great question. So they get—right now—so a lot of things in zoos—I know that we’re in the imperial system but we do a lot of metric things here. We do their weights in metric. We do their bamboo consumption in metrics.

So they get about forty kilograms each a day, which is about ninety pounds or so. Now, they don’t eat all of that. We don’t make them sort of lick their plate clean. They are very finicky about bamboo. So we offer them multiple types, multiple ages, multiple sizes, all the different multiple species whenever we can so they can pick and choose.

We don’t really expect them to eat all of it. We expect there to be some waste. When we find a particular delivery that they don’t like usually the elephants will benefit because the elephants are just across the way. So somebody worked to cut it down and bring it here so we don’t want it to go to waste.

As far as where we get it from, there’s a number of places we get it from. There are some places here on property—zoo property—that we get it but mostly we get it from, well, Front Royal. Brandie mentioned Front Royal earlier. So our campus out there we actually have bamboo stands that we grow specifically for browse material.

So because we have pandas lots of animals get bamboo here. But we also have about a two and a half hour radius around the zoo where we actually partner with private landowners that will actually—they get in contact with us. We’ll go out. We’ll check out the property. We’ll make sure it looks all, you know, clean and hygienic and all the good things, and then we’ll actually go on a rotation and cut that.

So we have about—we have over thirty bamboo stands, like I said, in about a two and a half hour radius around the zoo and we go out about three times a week—we go out five times a week in general for bamboo but three times a week specifically for pandas and it’s—so basically, the bamboo here is never more than a few days old and we have a special building that’s climate controlled and there’s misters in there to keep it moist and fresh for them as well.

So the bamboo actually sometimes comes in worse shape. It actually gets better after it’s been here for overnight because it gets the drink and it gets all refreshed. But I make it sound easy but the pandas are—they’re connoisseurs of bamboo so they keep us on our toes chasing—bamboo doesn’t run very fast but, boy, do we chase it. We chase it all around the DMV. We’re looking for the good stuff.

GRIFFIN: I have a lot of bamboo in my yard. (Laughter.)

AMARAL: Well, when they first came they were acclimating to some of our bamboo and they were super finicky, and believe it or not there was a type of bamboo that we had on property that’s—you know, typically bamboo is green but this was a—it’s almost a black bamboo. It was almost the color of eggplant.

And we—some of our horticulture folks were just doing some regular pruning and I said, oh, don’t throw that away. It’s not usually on the menu. The black bamboo is not usually on the menu but we gave it to them and they loved it.

So one of our curators here actually said, I have that. My neighbor—it straddles my and my neighbor’s property and we want it gone. Like, do you want to come get it? (Laughter.)

And I kid you not, our commissary crew went out there with the truck and they cut it all down free of charge, and they did it. So it actually—they don’t get it on a regular basis, but it helped us with their transition here to get that sort of rare bamboo.

And so whenever we find it—and so I’ll also say, in addition to any naming ideas, if you know anybody with black bamboo. (Laughter.)

GRIFFIN: That’s awesome. Calling Whole Foods. OK.

Q: Hi. My name is Henry Blunt (sp).

I guess what I’m wondering, you said for the male panda here that one of the main reasons it was brought back is because it’s related to some of the old pandas at the zoo. I’m wondering was there also some, like, connection that the other panda had to the zoos or was there some behavioral reason why it was chosen?

AMARAL: So we were, basically, given a couple of choices. Now, what we wanted—so the cool part was that he has a connection to the previous set of pandas. The reason why she came with him is because she was a good genetic match so when they have cubs. So, essentially, she actually has very little connection to anything here because she was chosen for a completely different reason.

As far as, like, their behavior part she was also raised a little bit differently than he was. So he is—if you ever go out and watch him for a little while—and I’ll give you some hints so you can kind of keep me honest—but he’s very into people.

And so he had a different upbringing so when he was very young the normal weaning time around pandas is about eighteen months, give or take, and so he was actually weaned at a normal time and lived on his own, which is pretty normal for pandas.

Qing Bao actually lived in a sort of cohort kindergarten with some other pandas and then she was moved out of that group in preparation to come here. So she’s much more independent because she was just, like, I know what to do. I got my buddies. I got my bamboo. I’m good. I don’t need you people. Just throw the bamboo over the fence and I’m good.

But he is much more attuned to people, and she’s come a long way even, like I said, since she’s been here as she acclimates to everybody. She’s come a long way.

But she was very standoffish in the beginning and we’re actually doing a lot of—still doing a lot of training with them so we can do a lot of the—you know, we always say we do husbandry training, which basically allows them to participate in their own health care and she was averse to being.

You know, we have a really cool training area in the back where we can get a look at them and, you know, we have a place where they put their leg—their arm out and they’ll hold on to something so that we can get a blood sample, which is kind of cool.

But she was very averse to even being touched. He was, like, no, you missed a spot. Do that, you know. (Laughter.) But she’s very averse to being touched but she’s come a long way. She’s much, much, much better than she was.

So anyway, so yes. So he was chosen because of his partial lineage to our folks—the previous pandas here and then, again, she was chosen because she had nothing to do with that. And then there was a connection on the other set of pandas that we could have chosen from as well.

But when we went there, all things considered, it’s kind of a how do you choose, right? How do you choose the pandas? They’re all cute. They’re all great. But we just figured—you know, we’ve sent our smartest panda folks over there to have a look at it and those are the ones that we selected.

Q: Hi. I’m Kassia Yanosek from Bechtel Corporation and my question is for Rush.

It may be—the rest of you can answer the question if you’d like to but you don’t have to, and it’s around the Middle East.

The Middle East is, obviously, an area where there’s a lot of conversation about will the U.S. and its allies versus China have more of a position in the Middle East, and I’m just wondering what your view is on China right now in terms of its positioning in the Middle East and if there’s any panda or soft power diplomacy that you see in the future, despite bad weather for a panda.

DOSHI: Well, I don’t know if there are any pandas currently in the Middle East. It’s a fair question whether there’s any in the UAE or Saudi Arabia. Those would be leading places for them.

Steve Cook, our actual Middle East expert—of which I am not—says no. For those who can’t hear, he says no emphatically. So there are no pandas in the Middle East, it has been stated.

Q: Lots of Chinese stuff.

DOSHI: But not pandas. And, actually, his second point is lots of Chinese stuff. That’s true.

I mean, China’s relationship with the Middle East, which Steve could talk about in greater detail than I can although it’s something I worked on personally as well, its profile has increased, right? It buys a lot of oil from the Middle East but it’s also an investor. It’s supplying a lot of the electronics that the Middle East is using in its own supply chains.

And, you know, it’s an interesting role, too. I think you can think of China as sometimes—maybe sometimes an arsonist in that it’s supplying components for some of the rebel groups that are participating in conflict in the Middle East, and then it’s also supplying the solutions to those problems.

So it might be supplying parts for UAVs that end up in Yemen but it might also be supplying radars for others that are useful for tracking those UAVs. So it sort of plays both sides. I do think, in general, that its profile has increased and I also think that there have been big questions. Will there be a Chinese military base in the UAE one day? Those are questions that are really live.

What will China’s role be in the telecommunications infrastructure of the Middle East? That’s an important question. What kind of relationship will it have with the Houthis to get its ships through the Middle East?

So given their interests in the region and given the region’s importance in global affairs, China’s own role has increased over time. And, you know, you could ask was it zero sum or not zero sum. Aspects of it very much are zero sum. You know, where you have a base, if someone else has a base nearby it makes your base less useful. So that’s a zero sum aspect.

Other aspects on the economic dimension are less—you know, less competitive. And as for pandas and whether they would improve China’s position in the Middle East I suspect pandas would be very popular, although Steve could tell you for sure.

Steve, would they be popular?

Q: (Off mic.) I’m sure they would be very popular. I think the soft-power challenge for the United States in the Middle East is not as—is not as great—sorry. (Comes on mic.) I’d say the soft-power challenge for the United States in the Middle East is not as great as the soft power challenge for the Chinese in the Middle East. I think a lot of people roll out of bed and look towards the United States. It’s just different.

Mike and I were in Saudi Arabia and we had a presentation with an official American who told us that from his perspective WWE—professional wrestling—is one of the best soft power components the United States has.

Over the weekend, I got video of Guns and Roses playing in Riyadh after they played in Manama, the capital of Bahrain. So there’s a lot of American soft power. I think the Chinese are nowhere close to it in the Middle East. That’s just not what we think about it.

DOSHI: The pandas could change everything.

Q: Pandas could change some of it but I don’t know—

DOSHI: Come on, Steve. All right. (Laughter.)

AMARAL: And I’m not touching that one. (Laughter.)

DOSHI: So, like, I was not going to touch panda fertility, so—(laughter).

GRIFFIN: We have some more hands up here. If we could, please. Right there. Yeah.

Q: Hi, there. Kelly Drubka (ph). Thank you all for this really interesting presentation.

I had a question about panda families and what it’s like to have the cubs go back at three or four. And so is that, like, hard for families? I know in other animal groups like elephants there’s a degree of, like, mourning and those types of things. Or are the pandas just kind of living their best life, bamboo all day every day and, you know, I’ll see you in China in twenty years situation with the parents and the babies? Thanks.

SONGER: You know, as Bryan said, they’re weaning at one and a half or two years. In the wild giant pandas are solitary animals so they’re not hanging out in a big group with their families.

So, you know, from what I’ve observed it was harder on the keepers than the pandas to be separated, honestly. (Laughter.) So—

AMARAL: Yeah, and one of the things that we do here that’s interesting, so we get to do—and Mel can tell you in natural history the weaning process is probably a little more abrupt in that, you know, females will go back and—they usually skip a couple of estruses because they’re raising, you know, a cub and then typically what’ll happen is as they start to go into estrus, well, guess what happens? Here comes the males, and the males don’t have time for pandas that are not in estrus. So there’s—it’s all business.

So that will help the dispersal. Here we actually—we have the ability to sort of have it be a soft kind of break so we increasingly have them spend times apart to the point where one day they don’t go back together, and so it’s a process where they get to kind of acclimate a little bit to it.

And, yeah, is there a little bit of—I don’t want to say it’s traumatic but, I mean, everybody—I got a kid going to college next year and my wife is probably—I will have to acclimate her. Start now, I guess. (Laughter.)

But, you know, essentially, again, we have the ability to do that. What’s a little bit different is for this last one, Xiao Qi Ji—because we knew this was Mei’s last cub regardless as to whether she went into estrus or not we were not going to attempt to breed her so there was no reason to separate them.

So we did what we called a little bit more of a natural—I don’t want to say natural because it’s not any less natural than what we’ve done before, but we left them together longer because there was no urgency at all and no desire, no effort, to breed her that following season, and what we found was she was, like, get this kid out of here. Enough of this, you know, climbing all over, biting her ears.

And so we didn’t do it to the detriment of either one of them but what we found was—is that even though times change and change can be hard, we found that that is within, obviously, the realms of normal and there is a benefit to everybody by sort of sticking to that natural order.

Again, we do it a little bit different, you know, as far as the acclimation. We get them used to it before we finally sort of cut the cord totally. So yes and no, and, of course, for the keepers it’s always a little bit, oh, you know.

Because I’m not going to, like—there’s always a little bit of calling from the youngster, like, are we really not doing this? But to Mel’s point, it is completely normal and natural for them to be separate and apart at that point.

GRIFFIN: OK. We have time for maybe two more questions.

Do we have a microphone, please? There are a couple of questions. Here’s one up front.

Q: Hi. Teddy Nemeroff.

I mean, right now between the U.S. and China there’s a lot of tension around technology transfer and scientific exchanges. I’d be interested in hearing about the state of scientific and research cooperation on pandas and whether that’s something that is continuing strong.

SONGER: Yes. Really, from the beginning when I was—became involved we’ve had really strong partnerships that we’ve built with university partners, research partners, partners at the breeding center.

So, you know, as I said before, when you’re working on giant pandas there seems to be automatically good will and a strong drive to do whatever it takes, and so we’ve had great success in working together with scientists and veterinarians in China and it’s not really—we haven’t had to deal with an issue in terms of the diplomacy or anything around research and capacity building.

GRIFFIN: Rush, could you see a situation where if there were a war or a trade war that China could demand the pandas back, or would that be pretty out of bounds?

DOSHI: Well, I think it’s tough to imagine, you know, right now at the beginning of these new—I guess they’re sort of lease agreements. Used to be gifts, now they’re lease agreements. You know, doing that.

It’s, certainly, possible within the cards and they have provisions within those contracts that they can exercise that are not political but that they could use for political purposes. But, look, at the end of the day, I think China understands that, as we’ve heard from Mel and others, this is an area of unique U.S.-China collaboration.

The pandas are very popular. They’re good for China’s impression and image in the United States. At a moment of tension it’s not the first tool that I’d reach for. Maybe rare earth magnets. Probably not pandas.

AMARAL: Well, the other neat thing—and this is not in my wheelhouse typically, but as Mel mentioned earlier, you know, fifty years and the—you know, the political stuff this is an easy thing to agree on. It’s an easy thing to kind of gather around and they’re—it’s a source of pride and cooperation and something we’ve had a huge amount of accomplishment on for the last—at least with, you know, National Zoo for the last fifty years.

So if nothing else we can certainly agree on, you know, that. So I think that’s always a place that we can go back to as an anchor if we want to.

GRIFFIN: We have time for one more question. Maybe right there.

Q: Hi. Jesse Burdick, term member and U.S. Marine.

So I noticed the paintings on the back of the habitat, very nice scenic pictures of China, and I’m curious about the messaging associated with displaying. I can’t imagine the painting was necessarily for the panda as much as it is for the public.

But I’m curious about both, you know, stipulations with displaying or any public messaging associated with the pandas. How much of that has to be coordinated with the foundation in China or with the Chinese government?

Thank you.

SONGER: In terms of the messaging and the exhibits, we do that independently. We don’t run that by anyone in China. And then the scenery I think, yes, I would say that’s probably for the people so it’s made to look like the habitat in the wild.

GRIFFIN: Well, I want to take this time and thank, again, the Marc Haas Foundation and Stanley S. Shuman Family Foundation for this incredible Daughters and Sons Series.

I want to thank our panelists. Thank you for joining us, and it was a really, really fruitful and fascinating discussion. (Applause.)

(END)