Xin Xin is the world’s only giant panda not owned by China and the last of her kind in Mexico.

Born at Mexico City’s Chapultepec Zoo on July 1, 1990, she has reached 35 years of age — equivalent to more than 100 human years — and is among the oldest pandas alive.

Xin Xin descends from pandas gifted to Mexico in 1975, before Beijing shifted its "panda diplomacy" from gifts to loans.

Her mother was Tohui, a Mexican national icon and the first panda born outside China to survive to adulthood; her father, Chia Chia, was a male panda originally given to the London Zoo.

Because both parents came from the pre-loan era, Xin Xin remains the only panda in the world not under Chinese ownership.

Since the mid-1980s, China has only loaned pandas to foreign zoos under agreements worth around $1 million annually, with any cubs born abroad considered Chinese property.

The fees help fund panda conservation in China and serve as a form of diplomatic soft power.

Xin Xin has already surpassed the usual panda life span, which is about 15–20 years in the wild and 25–30 years under professional care.

The global record is 38 years, set by Jia Jia in Hong Kong.

Chapultepec’s high-altitude climate, similar to the bamboo forests of Sichuan, has long supported the zoo’s panda program, which produced eight cubs in total.

Daily care for Xin Xin includes health checks and cooperative training that allows veterinarians to monitor her without anesthesia.

Her diet consists of 12 to 13 kilograms (26–29 pounds) of bamboo grown in Mexico, along with a fortified ration of rice, carrots and apples.

She is particularly fond of apples, which also serve as rewards during her conditioning.

The Chapultepec pandas were once national celebrities, inspiring songs and drawing massive crowds in the 1980s.

There are now about 1,860 pandas in the wild, mostly in China’s Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu.

Thanks to conservation, the species was reclassified by the IUCN from Endangered to Vulnerable in 2016.

Xin Xin never had offspring and is far past reproductive age.

As the last chapter of Mexico’s panda era approaches, she stands as both a living reminder of an earlier phase of diplomacy and a symbol of progress in saving one of the world’s most beloved species.

AP Video by Martín Silva Rey