San Francisco asks China’s president for a panda

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — San Francisco’s mayor had rare chance to speak face-to-face with Chinese President Xi Jinping just before he departed from the 2023 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative summit.

Mayor London Breed seized the moment on San Francisco International Airport’s runway by asking for something very specific — and fuzzy. Breed told Xi that the San Francisco Zoo is hoping and ready to host one of China’s adored giant pandas.

First reported by The San Francisco Standard, Breed followed up her panda question by writing a letter to Xi in December. “To grow our friendship, to greatly benefit our youth, and to continue our joint efforts on panda conservation, I propose, as I did on the runway when bidding your farewell, that we establish a partnership in which our San Francisco Zoo will host your cherished diplomats — Giant Pandas,” Breed wrote in the letter.

Breed highlighted San Francisco’s “rich history with pandas.” Two giant pandas, named Yun Yun and Ying Xin, resided at the San Francisco Zoo in 1985. Most recently, the SF Zoo created an Asian conservation zone “which was specifically designed to contain a space for a Panda Reserve,” Breed wrote.

Icy foreign relations between the U.S. and China thawed during last year’s APEC summit, hosted by the City of San Francisco. While delivering a speech in front of business leaders at APEC, Xi praised San Francisco as a leader for fostering China-U.S. relations.

President Joe Biden and Xi sat down together at a Woodside mansion to talk about complicated international affairs. Xi said his country plans to continue “panda diplomacy” by sending pandas to some zoos in America.

Currently, there are no pandas in California. The last giant pandas were sent by the San Diego Zoo back to China in 2019.

But Breed is hoping to change that. She wrote to Xi, “San Francisco does not simply stand ready; we stand with both confidence and excitement that we can be great partners in panda conservation and, more importantly, in the effort to continue improving and enhancing relations between the Chinese and American people.”

Xi said he learned that Californians were very fond of the San Diego Zoo’s pandas. “I was told that many American people, especially children, were really reluctant to say goodbye to the pandas, and went to the zoo to see them off,” he said.

There are only 1,800 pandas in the wild, according to World Wildlife Fund.

Pandas predominately live in temperate forests along mountains in southwest China. “The panda, with its distinctive black and white coat, is adored by the world and considered a national treasure in China,” WWF wrote.

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Six-hundred pandas live in zoos and breeding centers around the world.

The San Francisco Zoo’s Asian conservation zone currently is home to a red panda, snow leopard, Asian rhino, and orangutan. The zoo’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to KRON4’s inquiry on potential panda plans.

Across the Bay, the Oakland Zoo is not pursing pandas at this time. Oakland Zoo spokesperson Erin Dogan told KRON4, “We did apply and were in the process with China over a decade ago, but it was extended process. We decided to change course and give the space we had planned for potential pandas to our Hamadryas baboons instead.” Oakland’s baboon troop needed the additional space for several newborns, Dogan said.

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