China plans to bring the giant panda back to the San Diego Zoo to continue panda conservation efforts after US President Joe Biden had the first face-to-face meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a year.

The giant pandas were a gift to the United States from China as a symbol of the two country’s friendship, and have been located in the San Diego Zoo since 1972. Sending the pandas to America was also an attempt to bring the population up for panda conservation under a $1 million a year per pair loan. However, in 2019, the USA’s relationship with China had soured, and the pandas were sent back to China.

This year, the China Wildlife Conservation Association is attempting to reestablish these giant panda conservation efforts and is planning to send the bears to the San Diego Zoo and the Madrid Zoo in Spain, under what is known as “Panda Diplomacy.” There are also talks between the National Zoo in Washington, and Schönburnn in Vienna, Austria. Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency reported that this opportunity is “a new round of international cooperation for giant panda conservation.”

Megan Owen, vice president of wildlife conservation science at the San Diego Zoo, stated that the San Diego Zoo was planning to get 2 new giant pandas, 1 female and 1 male, by the end of summer. “We are humbled by the potential opportunity of continuing our collaborative conservation efforts to secure the future for giant pandas,” Owen said.

China uses the money from these panda loans towards funding conservation research for the bears, and in recent years, there have been 1,800 giant pandas in the wild and 600 more currently in captivity. Thanks to these efforts, the giant panda has been taken off the endangered animals list and has been changed to vulnerable.