China’s first lady Peng Liyuan projected a more approachable image of China during Xi Jinping’s Washington trip, chatting with Melania Trump in English without a translator and singing along as a youth choir performed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art.
China’s ambassador to the United States, Xie Feng, wrote on X that Peng encouraged American teenagers to keep studying Chinese language and culture and become “envoys of friendship” between the countries. Analyst Joe Mazur said her appearances could humanize otherwise hard-nosed diplomacy and create positive moments in US-China relations.
Discussion of Peng’s activities and fashion on Chinese social media remained heavily limited. Searches on Red Note for her fashion sense and English abilities returned no results, which Reuters said underscored sensitivities about public discussion of top Chinese leaders’ personal lives.
