Two panda bears from the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo will be returned to China in January, leaving Japan without these animals for the first time in 50 years.

Two giant pandas, Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao, from the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, will be returned to China in January, according to Japanese media. This will mark the first time in about 50 years that Japan will not have pandas, animals loaned under the "panda diplomacy" program that symbolizes the friendship between Beijing and Tokyo. Although the Tokyo metropolitan government tried to keep the bears, China did not agree.

It is expected that the bears will be sent back a month before the loan expires, and Tokyo is trying to borrow a new pair of pandas, although their arrival before the current pandas are returned is considered unlikely. Relations between Japan and China have recently deteriorated, and the Ueno Zoo has a long history of cooperation with China in breeding giant pandas, but raising them in captivity remains a challenge.