Japan’s only pandas will return to China tomorrow, with relations between Tokyo and Beijing frosty.
Crowds gathered at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo for emotional goodbyes to Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei during their last public appearance Sunday; their departure leaves the country without pandas for the first time since 1972. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent comments that Japan could support Taiwan if China attacked the island sparked tensions, and prospects of replacement pandas are uncertain.
Beijing has used loans of the bamboo-eating, sex-shy bears to gesture goodwill to other nations since World War II, and the growing hostility between the East Asian powers suggests that goodwill is in short supply.
