The other inauguration in Washington, D.C.

The Smithsonian Museums were closed on 20 January. Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday, would have seen to that anyway, but the inauguration of the 47th President of the United States was the more obvious reason this year. On Friday, however, there was another inauguration ceremony of a more bipartisan nature in Washington, as the Smithsonian National Zoo celebrated the arrival of two Chinese pandas called Bao Li and Qing Bao.

The pandas actually touched down in the United States last October, but have been undergoing their own transition period since then. After a period of quarantine and getting used to their new surroundings and keepers, the three-year-old bears, a male and a female, were on view earlier in the month to 11,000 National Zoo members keen to get an early glimpse of them doing, as is the wont of pandas, not very much.

Inauguration Day: Lonnie Bunch III, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, speaks at the ceremony before Bao Li and Qing Bao made their official public debut at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC on 24 January. Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

After the Smithsonian National Zoo’s previous pandas were recalled by China in November 2023, Washington was panda-less for the first time since Pat Nixon welcomed those pioneering furry diplomats, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hing, to the city in 1972. In an interview with the New Yorker last year, Lonnie G. Bunch III, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution said, ‘The key to life is not being the guy who lost the pandas’. He was able to joke about it by then, having persuaded the-then US administration to press for new pandas. (Bao Li and Qing Bao are, like all their kind in zoos outside China, on long-term loan, with the Smithsonian paying the Chinese Wildlife and Conservation Association an annual fee of $1m until their lease is up in April 2034.)

At the official ceremony on 24 January the Chinese ambassador to the United States, Xie Feng, reminded us of the different lives led by the 1,864 pandas in the world: ‘Some of them are superstars at zoos, growing up happily under the meticulous care of panda nannies. Some are enjoying a carefree life in their beautiful home villages, having fun among verdant forests and lush waters.’ An investigation by the New York Times last year suggests that life may not be quite so idyllic for every panda but perhaps, at the end of a momentous week, the last word on the subject, for now, can go to Lonnie G. Bunch III, who said when the pandas arrived: ‘I am really pleased that the Smithsonian is able to do something that makes Washington smile.’

Bao Li in his habitat at Smithsonian National Zoo. Photo: Roshan Patel/Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute