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  • 1 week ago
Japan's only two giant pandas will be returned to China in January one month before their loan period expires, as tensions with Beijing remain strained.
Transcript
00:00Japan's only two giant pandas will be returned to China in January
00:05as the relationship between the two countries remains strained.
00:09The move will leave Japan without China's iconic bears for the first time in 53 years.
00:16Japan currently has a pair of twin pandas, Lele and Xiao Xiao, housed at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo,
00:22which has previously cooperated with facilities in China and the US to successfully breed giant pandas.
00:28Lele and Xiao Xiao were born in 2021 to their mother, Xin Xin, who arrived in Japan in 2011
00:35and was returned to China last year.
00:38They are now scheduled to be repatriated one month before their loan period expires in February.
00:44The animals were loaned under China's panda diplomacy program
00:47and have long symbolized the normalization of diplomatic ties between Japan and China since 1972.
00:54Local media reports Tokyo is seeking the loan of a new pair,
00:57although any arrival in the near term is considered unlikely.
01:02Ties between Asia's two largest economies have deteriorated in recent months,
01:06after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaiichi said
01:09Tokyo could intervene in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
01:13Ties between Hawaii and Guyana
01:13Thou Hari-Nan
01:31and Torii III
01:36Ties between Jo street in Henry
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