Two giant pandas sent over from China have arrived in Atlanta following a landmark summit in Washington between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, emphasising symbolism between the two nations.
The pandas, Ping Ping (male) and Fu Shuang (female), arrived at FedEx from Chengdu in southwestern China. They are the third pair of pandas sent to the US in the last two years.
The arrival comes just one day after Xi ended his state visit to Washington, where he managed to extend the trade truce between the two countries and set up an AI hotline.
Zoo Atlanta is ready to take in the pandas and put them in the biosecure zone of the giant panda complex where the animals will remain for about a month before they can be seen by the public.
“We are elated to welcome Ping Ping and Fu Shuang and could not be more excited about sharing that joy with our Members, guests, city, and community in the coming weeks,” Raymond B. King, president and CEO of Zoo Atlanta, said in a statement.
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The zoo has taken in pandas before; Lun Lun and Yang Yang produced seven offspring at Zoo Atlanta between 2006 and 2016 before moving back to Chengdu in 2024, when the 25-year agreement expired.
During the White House press conference on Thursday, Xi explicitly made a connection between the arrival of the new pair and the decades-long practice of lending out the pandas.
“The giant panda has been an envoy of friendship between the Chinese and Americans,” Xi said, referring to the fifty years of panda diplomacy between Beijing and Washington.
The tradition started under Mao Zedong, Chairman of China, in 1972, soon after Richard Nixon visited China, becoming the first US president to do so since the rise to power of the Communist Party in 1949.
One of the two Atlanta-bound pandas even bears the name Ping Ping, meaning “peace”, same as the first panda that Mao gave to the Soviet Union in 1957.
The two pandas departed Chengdu at 2:55 a.m. local time on Sunday, reported China’s state news agency Xinhua. In the video posted by the news outlet, fans waving placards could be seen while trucks were transporting the animals from the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base in Sichuan province to the airport, where they loaded the two big boxes into the plane for the 16-hour journey.
At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the CNN team witnessed how the crates containing the pandas were lowered from the cargo hold, then put on FedEx trucks and transported under police escort for 10 miles to the zoo, where an orange forklift was waiting to lift the crates into the newly built panda complex.
China also made sure to send a few veterinarians and breeders to stay with the pandas during their period of quarantine after the extensive online and offline cooperation on the upgrading of the enclosures.
“What Zoo Atlanta has been working hard for the past year is making improvements to our enclosures, where our enclosures are a lot bigger,” Sam Rivera, vice president of animal health at the zoo, told Xinhua. “We’re ensuring that we have plenty of bamboo for them to eat. We have experienced keepers that are trained on taking care of giant pandas.”
People living in Atlanta and their business owners were quick to show their excitement. Local popular Ollie’s Market and Deli posted a welcome message for Ping Ping and Fu Shuang in both English and Chinese languages, while families were looking forward to bringing their children to see the bears after the period of quarantine.
“We have our baby, so we’re excited to take her to the zoo for the first time and get to see the pandas again,” resident Katy Justice told CNN.
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Back in Chengdu, panda keeper Fu Jia described the cost of sending off the animals.
“After caring for them for so long… It’s like raising your own children,” she told CCTV. “They weighed barely over 100 grams at birth, and we nurtured them until they grew big and heavy. I won’t get to see them for quite a long time, so it’s hard to say goodbye.”
On Saturday evening, China’s ambassador to the US, Xie Feng, posted pictures of the pandas on his X account and wrote “Get ready to greet our two fluffy stars!”
As President Xi Jinping announced during his state visit to the United States, two giant pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, have set out on their journey to Zoo Atlanta. Get ready to greet our two fluffy stars! 🐼🐼 pic.twitter.com/NH3H206Lfd
— Xie Feng 谢锋 (@AmbXieFeng) September 26, 2026
Sending out pandas as gifts or on loan has always been a diplomatic tool used by Beijing to build friendships or mend relationships.
It serves as a symbol of softness in the increasingly competitive relations between the US and China, which are marked by the AI race and trade wars.
The last two pairs of pandas to arrive in the US were sent to San Diego and Washington in June 2024, becoming the first pandas allowed to travel to the US in more than two decades.
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The cost of keeping the pandas at Atlanta Zoo is around a million dollars per year per pair, and any cubs born to Ping Ping and Fu Shuang will be returned to China, showing the controlled nature of panda diplomacy despite being a warm gesture.
Chinese officials and Zoo Atlanta “will carry out in-depth academic and cultural exchanges to continuously enhance mutual understanding and friendship between the people of China and the United States,” Xinhua said.
