Two giant pandas arrive in Atlanta from China after Xi-Trump summit

Two giant pandas from China arrived in Atlanta , Georgia, on Sunday morning as part of an agreement between the Chinese and US governments.

While in Washington DC for a three - day summit with Donald Trump , the Chinese president, Xi Jinping , announced that the pandas would arrive in Atlanta in the coming days. The loan of the pandas to the Atlanta zoo was one of the few concrete outcomes of Xi’s state visit with the US president, which saw expressions of goodwill between the leaders, but no fixes to any of the longstanding differences between the two countries.

Atlanta said farewell to its last pandas in 2024, leaving the zoo without the bears. The new agreement was announced back in April, but without any dates.

A farewell ceremony is held on Saturday for giant pandas Ping Ping and Fu Shuang at Chengdu research base of giant panda breeding. Photograph: Xu Bingjie/Xinhua/AP

Ping Ping and Fu Shuang are the two adult pandas that will be on loan to Zoo Atlanta for 10 years as part of the agreement. They departed Chengdu in south-western China early on Sunday aboard a dedicated “FedEx Panda Express” Boeing 777 aircraft, officials said. A new agreement between Zoo Atlanta and the China Wildlife Conservation Association makes Atlanta one of three zoos in the US to house giant pandas.

Ping Ping and Fu Shuang were born in 2020 and were kept at the Chengdu research base of giant panda breeding. The male Ping Ping has dark black circles around his eyes, while Fu Shuang, a female, has a forehead that protrudes a bit, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

China has long used the pandas as part of its diplomacy globally, deploying the bears in loan programs as expressions of goodwill and letting loan agreements lapse when tensions arise.

Xi had said the loan program was an example of “friendship between the Chinese and Americans”.

Copyright for this text belongs to The Guardian.