Visitors descended on Washington’s National Zoo on Friday to witness the cheery unveiling of two pandas on loan from China. Fans posted photos and videos to social media, as did the zoo under the hashtag #DCPandas.

上周五，游客们涌入华盛顿国家动物园，见证从中国租借的两只大熊猫的欢快亮相仪式。粉丝们在社交媒体上发布了照片和视频，动物园也用#DCPandas（华盛顿熊猫）为标签发布了照片和视频。

But in China, the government has sent a chilling message to panda fans to watch what they say online. Some online influencers have been arrested or questioned over what the authorities called “rumors” and “radical fan culture.”

但在中国，政府向熊猫粉丝发出了一个令人不寒而栗的信息，要求他们注意自己在网上的言论。一些网红因当局所称的“谣言”和“极端粉丝文化”而被捕或受到盘问。

The police have targeted people who have advocated for animal welfare or criticized overseas exchanges like the one that brought pandas to Washington. But state media has also published warnings about broader panda fandom. The moves come amid Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s crackdown on internet fan culture.

警方的目标是那些倡导动物福利或批评海外交流（比如把熊猫带到华盛顿）的人。但官方媒体也对更广泛的熊猫迷发出了警告。这些行动是在中国领导人习近平打击网络粉丝文化的背景下发生的。

China has millions of panda fans, many of whom have taken up the cause of animal welfare in a country where aggressive breeding tactics have injured bears and led to cubs being prematurely separated from their mothers. For years, the authorities tolerated their online activism and criticism, which targeted both Chinese and foreign zoos.

中国有数以百万计的熊猫粉丝，他们中的许多人投身于动物福利事业，在中国，激进的繁殖策略导致熊猫受伤，并导致幼崽过早地与母亲分离。多年来，当局容忍了他们针对中国和外国动物园的网上活动和批评。

No more. Last month, the police in Sichuan Province said they had arrested 12 people for smearing panda experts, inciting violence and spreading false information about pandas, including two that used to live at the National Zoo.

这种事不会再有了。上个月，四川警方表示，他们逮捕了12人，罪名是抹黑熊猫专家、煽动暴力和散布关于熊猫的虚假信息，其中包括两只曾经生活在华盛顿国家动物园的大熊猫。

The authorities have accused panda influencers of harassing staff at Chinese breeding centers and growing rich from livestream donations. The police claim to have uncovered panda-focused “radical animal protection gangs” in three provinces, according to state media.

当局指控熊猫网红骚扰中国繁育中心的工作人员，并通过直播打赏致富。据官方媒体报道，警方声称在三个省发现了以熊猫为重点的“极端动物保护犯罪团伙”。

In a bid to rein in internet culture, Mr. Xi has waged a war on online fandom, comparing enthusiast groups to “evil cults.” The authorities have detained sports fans for smearing Chinese athletes, apprehended people who swarmed airports to greet celebrities, and suspended K-pop fan accounts.

为了控制网络文化，习近平向网络粉丝发起了一场战争，将饭圈比作“邪教”。当局拘捕了抹黑中国运动员的体育迷，逮捕了蜂拥在机场迎接名人的人，暂停了韩国流行音乐粉丝的账户。

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not answer questions sent Wednesday morning.

中国驻华盛顿大使馆发言人没有回复周三上午发出的问题。

The crackdown shows how fragile discourse is in China, even when the subject is pandas.

这次打击行动显示出中国的言论是多么脆弱，即使话题是熊猫。

“These civilian ‘patriots’ were sometimes encouraged or tolerated by the government,” said Xiao Qiang, a researcher on internet freedom at the University of California, Berkeley. “But when official narratives have new needs,” he added, “panda fans can also be punished and arrested.”

“这些平民‘爱国者’有时受到政府的鼓励或容忍，”加州大学伯克利分校互联网自由研究者萧强说。“但当官方叙事有新的需求时，熊猫粉丝也可能受到惩罚和逮捕。”

9月，北京动物园熊猫馆入口处的武警。

Online influencers maintain playful social media pages, where users connect around their favorite animals. These communities exploded during the pandemic, as people stuck at home turned to reels of the animals munching on bamboo. One panda, He Hua, has more than 880,000 followers on the platform Weibo. A panda renowned for mischievous escape attempts, Meng Lan, has about 380,000.

网红们维护着有趣的社交媒体页面，用户可以在这里围绕他们最喜欢的动物进行交流。疫情期间，这些社区呈现爆发性增长，被困在家里的人们开始关注这些动物啃竹子的画面。一只名叫和花的熊猫在微博上拥有超过88万粉丝。以顽皮的逃跑行为而闻名的熊猫萌兰有大约38万粉丝。

Panda enthusiasts even secured policy changes. Their activism helped prompt the national forestry bureau to improve standards for panda enclosures and ban people from paying to hug pandas.

熊猫爱好者甚至促成了政策的改变。他们的行动促使国家林业局提高了熊猫圈养标准，并禁止人们付费拥抱熊猫。

When the Beijing Zoo bolted metal plates onto the windows of Meng Lan’s enclosure last year, to prevent escape, activists flooded government hotlines and social media with complaints. The zoo removed the plates and announced that it would renovate the space.

去年，北京动物园在萌兰的围栏窗户上安装了金属板，以防止萌兰逃跑，活动人士的投诉淹没了政府热线和社交媒体。动物园拆除了这些金属板，并宣布对熊猫馆进行翻新。

It helped that advocacy was often tinged with nationalism, like campaigning for the return of a scrappy panda from Memphis Zoo in 2023.

倡导活动往往带有民族主义色彩，比如2023年为了从孟菲斯动物园带回一只瘦弱的熊猫而奔走呼号。

The National Zoo has been a frequent target. The zoo’s application to import the pandas Bao Li and Qing Bao elicited nearly 38,000 comments to the American government, some of them written partly in Chinese. Many commenters mentioned the zoo’s history of using invasive artificial breeding techniques.

华盛顿的国家动物园一直是袭击的频繁目标。动物园引进大熊猫“宝力”和“青宝”的申请给美国政府带来了近3.8万条评论，其中一些评论部分是用中文写的。许多评论者提到了动物园使用侵入性人工繁殖技术的历史。

“Pandas are a symbol for China,” said Mr. Xiao. The activism is “a unique combination of propaganda and protection of a specific species” that can help “promote a political narrative,” he said.

“熊猫是中国的象征，”萧强说。他表示，这种行动主义是“宣传和保护特定物种的独特结合”，可以帮助“宣传一种政治叙事”。

But the government’s careful dance with panda fans is over. The arrests last month followed the detention in June of four people who had trailed a panda expert at a breeding center in western China, shouting that he was a traitor for working with overseas zoos.

但是政府与熊猫迷们小心翼翼的共舞结束了。在上个月的逮捕行动之前，有四人在6月被捕，他们在中国西部的一个繁殖中心跟踪一名熊猫专家，大喊他是与海外动物园合作的叛徒。

In December, state news agency Xinhua warned fans not to “let irrational misplaced love damage the panda protection field,” calling on them to “create a good environment for the development of giant panda protection research on the basis of science, rationality, and peace.”

去年12月，官方通讯社新华社警告粉丝们，“不要让非理性的、错误的爱酿成对大熊猫保护事业的伤害”，呼吁他们“在科学、理性、平和的基础上，共同营造大熊猫保护研究事业发展良好环境”。

The authorities in Sichuan accused a surprising demographic group, the middle-aged, of spending too much time online.

四川当局指责一个令人惊讶的人口群体——中年人——上网时间太长。

The police said that one woman spread “more than 60 rumors and defamatory videos involving giant pandas since August 2023.” They accused a couple of spreading misinformation on their livestreams for money. The authorities did not release the people’s full names.

警方表示，一名女子“2023年8月开始，陆续发布了60多条涉大熊猫谣言、诽谤视频”。他们指责一对夫妇为了赚钱而在直播中传播错误信息。当局没有公布这些人的全名。

While a few panda fans have resorted to extreme measures, most others have reasonable requests, said Sarah Cheng, a Chinese volunteer in Singapore with the group Panda Voices, which has organized international campaigns for panda welfare.

新加坡“熊猫之声”组织的一名中国籍志愿者莎拉·陈（音）说，虽然一些熊猫粉丝采取了极端措施，但大多数人的要求都是合理的。

“They just want the pandas to live better,” she said. “They want them to have bamboo shoots and proper bamboo to eat.” But many of their concerns, she said, “have largely gone unaddressed or dismissed.”

“他们只是想让大熊猫活得更好，”她说。“他们希望熊猫有竹笋和合适的竹子吃。”但她表示，他们的许多担忧“在很大程度上没有得到解决或被忽视”。