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Current Affairs

China pandas rise from unknown status to become palace pets, then national symbols, treasures

Once a neglected figure in ancient China’s folklore, literature and artefacts, the panda has become a national treasure and a defining symbol of the modern…

By Samantha Johnson / April 28, 2026

Once a neglected figure in ancient China’s folklore, literature and artefacts, the panda has become a national treasure and a defining symbol of the modern nation.

How did this black-and-white creature, long overlooked, come to occupy such an iconic place in a country’s cultural imagination?

Palaeontologists have discovered panda fossils across China, some dating back eight to nine million years.

A panda, centre, shown in a drawing which depicts ancient times in China. Photo: Baidu
A panda, centre, shown in a drawing which depicts ancient times in China. Photo: Baidu

According to early human scholar Wei Guangbiao, many of these ancient specimens show butchery marks, suggesting that prehistoric communities already ate pandas.

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The earliest written records of ancient pandas in China appear in the Book of Documents from the pre-Qin period (Paleolithic Period – 221 BC), which describes the animal as “as large as a tiger, with the might of a divine beast.”

By the Three Kingdoms era (220–280), pandas were known as bai pi, or “white bears,” and regarded as ordinary prey.

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Folklore even imagined that they could survive by eating iron, earning them the nickname “iron-eating beast.”

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