Tokyo
 — 

Japanese fans rushed to farewell the country’s last two pandas on Sunday ahead of their return to China, in a departure that highlights strained relations between the two countries.

Twin cubs Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei will leave Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo Tuesday after meeting their fans for the last time on the weekend.

They were born in the Japanese capital, but China retains ownership over them, under the rules of Beijing’s “panda diplomacy.” The government there treats pandas as national symbols and goodwill ambassadors, loaning them to countries with which they wish to strengthen ties.

The duo’s departure leaves Japan without any pandas for the first time in more than five decades, at a time when relations between Asia’s two biggest economies are at their lowest point in years.

And politics wasn’t far from visitors’ minds when they paid last visits to the pandas over the past week.

“I’m really sad,” visitor Shoken Ikeda told CNN during a recent trip to the zoo with his wife. “We always said, ‘There’s a panda here, so we’ll get to see it sometime,’ and then this happened. I wish I’d come more often.”

Long lines began to form in the weeks leading up to the pandas’ last encounter with the public, prompting the zoo to switch to a lottery system for tickets.

Another panda fan Yukie Kuyama said she lined up for five hours to see the animals in early December. After winning the lottery, she came to see them again last week.

“That’s very disappointing. It feels sad that such cute, innocent animals are being used as a trump card – or even a tool – in diplomacy,” she said.

The siblings have different personalities, according to their keepers; Xiao Xiao is timid while his sister Lei Lei is fearless and adapts to changes quickly.

The two pandas were born in 2021 at the Ueno Zoo, to mother Shin Shin and father Ri Ri. The parents were returned to China in 2024, a year after the twins’ sister Xiang Xiang was also sent back.

Japan welcomed its first pandas in 1972 to mark the normalization of diplomatic ties with China. Since then, more pandas have arrived or were born locally, gaining a huge following.

But remarks from Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi – suggesting that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could trigger a military response from her country – has recently drawn ire from China.

Beijing has responded with a flurry of economic pressure, including cutting flights and warning citizens against traveling to Japan. The number of Chinese tourists in Japan dropped by almost a half last month year on year, to around 330,000, Tourism Minister Yasushi Kaneko said last week.

Chinese authorities have also suspended seafood imports and banned exports of rare earth elements with military uses, as they demand that Takaichi withdraw her comment. The Japanese leader said in November that her remarks were “hypothetical” and that she would avoid making similar comments again.

Meanwhile, Takaichi has called an election on February 8 in a bid to reinforce her mandate on a range of policies, potentially including her tougher stance on China, having secured the office by winning an internal contest among her Liberal Democratic Party in October.

Last year, China also took back four pandas from the zoo of a Japanese town which relied heavily on panda-related tourism.

In Shirahama, a resort destination tucked away on the southern coast of Japan, shops selling panda merchandise, and ramen bars serving up noodles themed on the bears, were left in limbo.

China’s decision not to renew the leases of those four bears was potentially related to Taiwan as well, one international relations expert told CNN earlier, coming after Shirahama elected a mayor with a pro-Taiwan stance.

For now, staff at Ueno Zoo plan to keep the panda facility as it is and hope for the best.

“The facilities were designed specifically for giant pandas, so it wouldn’t be easy to adapt them for other animals,” said Hitoshi Suzuki, director of animal care and exhibits at the Zoo, who helped raise Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei from day one.

He hopes to continue working with China on conservation and breeding research at the very least. But more than anything, he hopes the pandas will come back one day.

“They’re not only adorable but also fascinating animals, and I would love for many people to have the chance to see them,” he said.

CNN’s Mai Takiguchi and Yosuke Tomita contributed reporting.