Everybody loves pandas—and China knows it. As we say goodbye to the National Zoo’s pandas, we look back at 50 years of “panda diplomacy” and consider its uncertain future.

Guest: E. Elena Songster, author of Panda Nation: The Construction and Conservation of China’s Modern Icon and professor of environmental history of modern China at St. Mary’s College of California.

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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Madeline Ducharme, Anna Phillips, Paige Osburn, and Rob Gunther.

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