In November, three pandas – Meixiang, Tiantian and their cub Xiao Qiji – who had been living in a Washington zoo for a long time, returned to China. The animals had been on loan from the Washington Zoo since 2000. In April, the PRC had already taken back a large Ya Ya panda from the Memphis Zoo, which was given to the United States as a friendship envoy. Two other zoos in the United States – Atlanta and San Diego – are also expected to send their resident pandas to China by the end of next year.
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Pandas in zoos around the world have long been one of China’s tools of diplomacy. The PRC transfers the animals to other countries, but with a number of conditions: the pandas remain China’s property, as do their offspring. The big panda is the unofficial symbol of China. In total, there are only 1.6 thousand pandas in the world.
Earlier it was reported that the baby panda, born in Moscow on 30 August, began to crawl. Zoologists paid attention to the fact that the panda moves well, correctly bending its hind legs and pushing off with them.
