| Good riddance to the National Zoo’s pandas? No way.

Children watch giant panda Xiao Qi Ji walk around his enclosure during a "Panda Palooza" event at the Smithsonian's National Zoo on Sept. 23. The departure of three beloved giant pandas from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo after the species’ residency of more than half a century has provoked a surprising reaction from many of this country’s most globally engaged citizens: “Good riddance.

Today, as the National Zoo prepares to return to pandaless life after so long, the question of whether to push for a continuation of the program has mostly to do with whether bringing back the bears will unjustly burnish China’s reputation.President Xi Jinping’s regime is threatening to attack Taiwan, crushing dissent in Hong Kong and carrying out a cultural genocide against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang province.

The nearby Panda Plaza, by the way, is hardly an advertisement for Chinese culture, much less Chinese policy. The primary dining option is a Sbarro. If the bears are associated withplace in onlookers’ minds, it’s probably D.C. — on whose downtown streets souvenir shops hawk plenty of panda merch. But no one at Panda Palooza, in the moment, seems to believe the pandas belong to anyone but to them.The thing is, pandas are only an instrument of soft power when they’re viewed that way.

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