China will send a new pair of giant pandas to Australia in a sign of closer ties

() – China will send a new pair of giant pandas to Australiaas announced this Sunday by Premier Li Qiang, in the latest sign of the strengthening of relations between both countries.

Li made the announcement at the Adelaide Zoo as he began a four-day trip to the country, Australian public broadcaster ABC reported. He said China will send a new pair of giant pandas to the South Australian zoo after its current pair returns to China later this year, according to Chinese state media.

Li’s visit to Australia, the first by a Chinese premier in seven years, comes after Beijing will lift high tariffs on Australian winess and remove barriers on barley, timber and coal imposed following then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s call in 2020 for an international investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic in China.

However, relations between the two countries have thawed since the Labor Party came to power in Australia in 2022.

China is Australia’s largest trading partner, accounting for almost a third of its foreign trade, according to the Australian government. Meanwhile, raw materials from Australia are important to Beijing’s efforts to revive its faltering economy.

China lends pandas to more than 20 countries as Beijing’s friendship envoys – a program often called “diplo.”

Giant pandas Wang Wang and Fu Ni, the only pandas in the southern hemisphere, have been on loan to Adelaide Zoo since November 2009. An agreement was reached in 2019 to extend their stay for another five years, according to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua. .
Li, China’s second-highest official, said he was glad to see that “although far from their homeland, Wang Wang and Fu Ni have been well cared for and settled down to live a happy life in Australia,” according to a statement. of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“They have become envoys of friendship between China and Australia, and a symbol of the deep friendship between the two peoples,” Li said in the statement.