Twin cubs Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei left Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo on Tuesday, local media reported, after meeting their fans for the last time on the weekend.

They were born in the Japanese capital, but China retains ownership over them, under the rules of Beijing’s “panda diplomacy.” The government there treats pandas as national symbols and goodwill ambassadors, loaning them to countries with which they wish to strengthen ties.

The duo’s departure leaves Japan without any pandas for the first time in more than five decades, at a time when relations between Asia’s two biggest economies are at their lowest point in years.

And politics wasn’t far from visitors’ minds when they paid last visits to the pandas over the past week.

“I’m really sad,” visitor Shoken Ikeda told CNN during a recent trip to the zoo with his wife. “We always said, ‘There’s a panda here, so we’ll get to see it sometime,’ and then this happened. I wish I’d come more often.”

Long lines began to form in the weeks leading up to the pandas’ last encounter with the public, prompting the zoo to switch to a lottery system for tickets.

Another panda fan Yukie Kuyama said she lined up for five hours to see the animals in early December. After winning the lottery, she came to see them again last week.

“That’s very disappointing. It feels sad that such cute, innocent animals are being used as a trump card – or even a tool – in diplomacy,” she said.

The siblings have different personalities, according to their keepers; Xiao Xiao is timid while his sister Lei Lei is fearless and adapts to changes quickly.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/25/asia/japan-returns-tokyo-pandas-china-intl-hnk

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