Every morning at 7:30 a.m. sharp, a race begins on the outskirts of Chengdu, a sprawling Chinese metropolis known for its spicy hotpot, old tea houses and the country’s most beloved animal – giant ...

For much of world history, the giant panda was just a giant panda, a cute and much-coveted zoological curiosity. But over the last quarter of a century, China has been deploying pandas around the ...