Opinion: Washington says a sad goodbye to giant panda Tai Shan

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People at Washington Dulles International Airport were in tears. Two pandas born in the United States -- one at Zoo Atlanta, one at the National Zoo in Washington -- were leaving on a special FedEx plane to become part of China’s panda breeding program.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said it broke her heart that Tai Shan, a celebrity to anyone who has watched him on the National Zoo’s panda webcam, was leaving. ‘Oh no!’ she said on hearing the news. Asked if this was a setback for U.S.-China relations, she joked, ‘I can’t talk about it. I’m too upset right now.’

Panda diplomacy began in 1973, when China gave two pandas to President Nixon as a goodwill gesture. But with the panda population’s shrinking numbers -- there are now only 1,600 in the wild and just 200 in captivity worldwide -- China launched a breeding program. Now, under a deal negotiated between Chinese and U.S. diplomats, all giant pandas originally from China are only on loan to foreign zoos and any cubs they produce must return to China eventually.

So Tai Shan’s departure for China has been on the books since the day he was born in 2005. Beijing granted Washington an extension, said Don Moore, associate director of animal care at the National Zoo, because the 2-year-old panda was still too young to breed and because of the ‘huge emotional attachment the American public has for him.’

But some see the forced evacuation of the pandas as a metaphor for China’s increasing clout in world economic and political power.

-- Johanna Neuman

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