Posted on 09/24/2023 8:35:05 AM PDT by NautiNurse
WASHINGTON—There are constants to life in the nation’s capital: sweltering summers, political dysfunction and, for much of the last 50 years, giant pandas.
Later this year, though, the three pandas living in the National Zoo will be sent to China, which has the rights to pandas in captivity all over the world. Their departure will leave Washington without at least one of the rotund, cuddly-looking bears for only the second time since Richard Nixon’s breakthrough with Beijing in 1972.
The breakdown in U.S.-China relations is bamboozling many in the city. Norma Valentini, a 52-year-old registered nurse who grew up in D.C. visiting the pandas, is finding the farewell difficult to bear.
“They’ve been here all my life,” she said. She comes to the zoo at least once a week these days to bid them goodbye. “It’s very, very sad.”
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By Dec. 7, the animals will return to Chinese conservationists, who have essentially been renting the adult pandas to the National Zoo, generally for about $1 million a year since 2000. Under the agreement—part of China’s global, soft-power “panda diplomacy”—cubs born in Washington go back to China, too.
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How do you even send a panda to China? FedEx , apparently. The logistics company will provide a plane to transport the three animals, though like much else in Washington, their exact date of departure is a closely held secret.
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(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Can't the cub claim anchor baby status?
Take your Giant Pandas and stick them , now they have to take care of them
Oh no!
I went there to see a baby panda when she was first put on display. Her mom was nearby trying to act cute so that people would pay attention to her, but everyone was just watching the baby.
The roots of this decision no doubt go back to criticism of China for mishandling the pandemic when it first emerged and the later accusations of engineering and releasing the virus. The criticism is valid, the accusations are not. Still, China lost face and this is revenge.
Can’t Joe just give China a trillion dollars so we can keep the pandas for couple more years?
Yes, DementiaJoe has been padding his resume of failures as (stolen)POTUS.
Agreed.
Not that I really give hoot about panda bears, but China sucks balls and hasn’t had an original idea since they invented acupuncture. Everything else they have is stolen from other nations. From indoor plumbing to super computers.
Piss on ‘em.
Our zoo lost its pandas also. I think they should tear down the China exhibit and put up an aquarium like the one in Atlanta.
China has domination over an entire species?!
What kind of BS is that?
Bad deals were made decades ago to get them (on loan). Could have just bought them. Everything’s for sale in China. If we aren’t smart enough by now to clone them after all this time of having access to their DNA, then shame on us.
“I’m gonna take my pandas and go home!” If only those Chinese scum would do that, instead of taking over our educational institutions, stealing our tech, stealing information from various politicians, and infecting the world with their bio-plagues.
Great point. And there's only 2000 of 'em left before extinction.
And if we refused to give them back? #%&$ China.
Feed them to the illegal aliens.
Joe Biden refusing to bow to China? Surely, you jest.
A million a year? Is there any deal we don’t give China the better side of?
We rent them for $1 million each a year....AND...any babies belong solely to China.
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