pandas

San Francisco is the latest U.S. city preparing to receive a pair of pandas from China, in a continuation of Beijing's famed "panda diplomacy."

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the United States and China must insist on peaceful coexistence and promised that giant pandas would return to the U.S. — specifically California — by year end.

After meeting with President Biden in California, President Xi Jinping signaled that he will send new pandas to the U.S., calling them "envoys of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples."

The male and female cubs, born Tuesday at the Qinling Panda Research Center in Shaanxi province, are the second pair of twins born to their mother, Qin Qin.

The announcement comes five years after the International Union for Conservation of Nature officially removed giant pandas from its endangered list.

Veterinarians performed laser treatment and acupuncture for what they initially thought was a touch of arthritis in the panda's left shoulder.

Pan Pan, who died this week at the age of 31, was known as the "panda grandpa": He has some 130 descendants worldwide, accounting for a quarter of the world's captive giant pandas.

The National Zoo's giant pandas are on loan from China, and the agreement requires that any pandas born in D.C. be sent to China before they turn 4. It'll soon be time for Bao Bao to make the journey.

Chinese newspapers have reported that 11-year-old Tuan Tuan died of distemper. Not so, the Taipei Zoo says — releasing photos of the panda, complete with recent newspapers, as evidence.

The name was chosen by first lady Michelle Obama and China's first lady, Madame Peng Liyuan. It was unveiled at a ceremony at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C.