Sept. 25 (Reuters) – She spoke with the United States’ First Lady, Melania Trump, in English, without the help of a translator, and sang softly when she was presented with a serenade by a choir of young people, displaying a natural glamour in a modern version of a traditional Chinese gown.
During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington, his wife Peng Liyuan is his soft power’s trump card, projecting a gentler, more approachable image of China, despite disputes with the United States over everything from trade to Taiwan.
“Thank you, Mother Peng!” the choir children told her after performing the Chinese folk song “Jasmine Flower” at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art in Washington on Thursday.
China’s ambassador to Washington, Xie Feng, highlighted her diplomatic role on X, posting a video of Peng applauding the performance.
Peng “encouraged American teenagers to continue studying the Chinese language and culture and to become ambassadors of friendship between China and the United States,” Xie wrote.
“She helps lend a more human tone to what, otherwise, could be a rather rigid diplomacy, and to create pleasant moments with regard to the U.S.-China relationship,” said Joe Mazur, a geopolitics analyst at Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Peng’s reception in Washington.
However, discussions on Chinese social media about her activities and fashion choices during the trip remain quite limited, underscoring the sensitivity around public discussion of the personal lives of the country’s top leaders.
Research into her fashion style and her English abilities on the popular Chinese platform Red Note yielded no results.
Traditionally, the wives of China’s top leaders have kept a low profile in recent decades, owing to the legacy of Jiang Qing, the widow of Mao Zedong, founder of the Communist China.
Jiang, the leader of the infamous Gang of Four who wielded supreme power during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, received a suspended death sentence in 1981 for the deaths of tens of thousands of people during that chaotic period.
Peng was previously better known in China as an Army soprano. As Xi rose to power in the early 2000s, Chinese media gained more freedom to cover her activities.
“When he comes home, I never thought of it as if there were any leader in the house. In my eyes, he is simply my husband,” Peng said in a 2007 interview with a state-owned magazine.
She described Xi as frugal, hardworking and down-to-earth.
Of humble origins, Peng has championed complex social causes, such as those of people living with HIV/AIDS.
Peng is Xi’s second wife, and the two have a daughter who studied at Harvard. Xi divorced his first wife, the daughter of a diplomat.
