Peng Liyuan: A Soft power superweapon

She chatted with US first lady Melania Trump in English without a translator, and sang along quietly when serenaded by a youth choir, looking effortlessly glamorous in a modern take on a traditional Chinese outfit.

On Chinese President Xi Jinping's Washington trip, his wife Peng Liyuan is his soft power superweapon, projecting a gentler, more approachable image of China, despite its disputes with the United States over everything from trade to Taiwan.

"Thank you, mother Peng!" children in the choir told her, after performing Chinese folk song Jasmine Flower at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art in Washington on Thursday.


China's Washington ambassador, 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 envoys of friendship between China and the US", Xie wrote.

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"She helps to put a more human face on what otherwise can be some quite hard-nosed diplomacy and generate some kind of feel-good moments as far as US-China relations go," said Joe Mazur, geopolitics analyst at consultancy Trivium China.