Within days, two high-profile Chinese visitors will arrive in the US – envoys of friendship, as Xi Jinping described them when he met Donald Trump at the White House this week. The giant pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, will be hosted at Atlanta zoo. Beijing dispatched the first panda pair to the US in 1972 following President Richard Nixon’s landmark visit to China.
It uses the animals to indicate satisfaction or displeasure with other nations. But it also charges heftily for their lease: reportedly, around $1m a year per pair. Americans’ views of China have warmed from a pandemic nadir, but are unlikely to be shifted much by two animals, however charming.
These days they are more of a token gesture than a striking symbol. It is telling that the announcement was one of the main takeaways of Mr Xi’s visit to Washington. Expectations were low after May’s stalemate summit in Beijing, but this meeting still struggled to meet them.
The US president gave Mr Xi a lavish welcome – unusually, travelling to meet the “strong, vibrant and fit” Chinese leader off the plane. He insisted that they had “never gotten along better”. In a sense that is not surprising.
Mr Trump admires and envies authoritarians with untrammelled powers. Chinese state media were welcome at the White House, unlike CNN, MS Now and Politico. Since he rarely pays even lip service to human rights, the treatment of Uyghurs or jailed Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong – facing another lengthy sentence for his international advocacy – were never likely to figure large, whatever the hopes of protesters outside.
Mr Trump told Mr Xi that any Chinese help for Iran is unacceptable; Mr Xi said that the US should adhere to the “correct position” of opposing Taiwanese independence. Beijing wants Washington to shift from the long-held stance of “not supporting” it. That would be a grave mistake, but Mr Trump has given worryingly mixed messages on Taiwan.
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