Xin Xin, the last panda in Latin America, is not your average bear.
A native of Mexico, she’s the only remaining member of a diaspora descended from giant pandas China gifted to foreign countries during the 1970s and 1980s.
Xin Xin is a second-generation Mexican-born panda, tracing her lineage to Pe Pe and Ying Ying, who arrived to the zoo in 1975. They were part of China's early “panda diplomacy,” a period when the charismatic animals were gifted to countries around the world. In 1984, China ended panda gifts, switching to a policy of high-priced loans.
The austere administration of Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador appears unlikely to agree to this price. “Another arrangement will definitely have to be found, but it will depend a lot on the will and necessities of both countries,” said Fernando Gual, director of Mexico City Zoos and Wildlife Conservation.
“It’s impossible not to have an attachment to these animals,” Gual said. “We saw most of them being born here.” Tohui was the second panda ever born outside China, and the first to survive infancy, living to age 12. Pop star Yuri released a song expressing the city’s pride and excitement. Eight pandas have been born at in Mexico, of whom five survived to adulthood. Decades of study at the Chapultepec Zoo have yielded extensive knowledge, as well as genetic material — cryogenically preserved semen and ovarian tissue — that scientists here hope will allow them to continue assisting in the pandas’ conservation even after Xin Xin is gone.
China is Mexico’s second most important trade partner, behind the United States, and China's government has been working to expand its influence in Latin America. The possibility of leaving the region without any pandas could be leverage for Mexico.At the Chapultepec Zoo there is a panda museum displaying photographs of the animals over the years, plaster casts of their footprints, bits of panda hair and dozens of children’s drawings. Shuan Shuan’s last birthday piñata is there too.
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