China agrees to keep pandas at National Zoo until 2023

Smithsonian’s National Zoo announced Monday that its family of three giant pandas will remain in Washington, D.C., through the end of 2023 before moving to China.

The pandas, 22-year-old Mei Xiang, 23-year-old Tian Tian and 3-month-old cub Xiao Qi Ji, will remain in the nation’s capital until Dec. 7, 2023, according to a Monday statement from the zoo.

The move is an extension of an agreement between the National Zoo and the China Wildlife and Conservation Association. A previous agreement with Chinese officials that allowed the beloved animals to stay in the U.S. expired on Monday. 

The National Zoo has been home to pandas since 1972. Steve Monfort, John and Adrienne Mars director of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, said in the Monday statement that the zoo’s “long-standing collaboration with Chinese colleagues to study, care for and save the giant panda will now pass the half-century mark.”

“Along with millions of Americans, I look forward to the next three years, watching Xiao Qi Ji grow and making further strides in conservation and in our understanding of giant pandas,” Monfort said. 

Mei Xiang and Tian Tian were both born in China, but they have lived at the National Zoo since December 2000. Mei Xiang has given birth to four surviving cubs, three of which moved to China under long-term agreements with Chinese officials that all panda cubs born at the National Zoo must go to China after they turn 4 years old. 

Monfort told The Washington Post that he was confident that Chinese officials would consider sending additional giant pandas to Washington, D.C., in the future. He said that he traveled to China in January, and he and other zoo employees “had an excellent meeting with our counterparts there.”

“It’s great to have them for a little longer but it also is a reminder that that’s ephemeral, and they will return to China,” he said. “This gives us three years to celebrate that and to get ready for it.”

The National Zoo pays the Chinese government $500,000 per year for the pandas to stay in the U.S.

Relations between the Trump administration and China have been strained, with President Trump regularly attacking China over the coronavirus pandemic, trade and more. However, Monfort told the Post that “I don’t believe there’s any sign that anyone is interested in politicizing these pandas.”

“I don’t see any sign that anyone is interested in making a political statement via pandas,” he said. “I really don’t.”