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Peng Liyuan chatted with US First Lady Melania Trump in English without a \u200btranslator, and sang along quietly when serenaded by a youth choir, looking effortlessly glamorous in a \u200cmodern take on a traditional Chinese outfit.<\/strong><\/p>\n On Chinese President Xi Jinping\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you, mother Peng!\u201d children \u200bin the choir told her, after performing Chinese folk song \u201cJasmine Flower\u201d at the Smithsonian National Museum of \u200bAsian Art in Washington on Thursday.<\/p>\n China\u2019s Washington ambassador, Xie Feng, highlighted her diplomatic role on \u2060X, posting a video of Peng applauding the performance.<\/p>\n Peng \u201cencouraged American teenagers to continue studying the Chinese language and \u200bculture and to become envoys of friendship between China and the United States\u201d, Xie wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cShe helps to put a more \u200bhuman 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,\u201d said Joe Mazur, geopolitics analyst at Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China.<\/p>\n China\u2019s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment \u200bon Peng\u2019s Washington reception.<\/p>\n TRADITIONAL LOW PROFILE FOR FIRST LADIES<\/strong><\/p>\n However, discussions on Chinese social media of her activities and fashion \u200bchoices during the trip remain heavily limited, underscoring sensitivities about public discussion of the personal lives of top leaders.<\/p>\n Searches for her \u200cfashion sense \u2060and English abilities on popular Chinese platform, Red Note, yielded no results.<\/p>\n Wives of top Chinese leaders have traditionally kept a low profile over the past few decades, because of the experience of Jiang Qing, the widow of the founder of Communist China, Mao Zedong.<\/p>\n Jiang, the leader of the infamous \u201cGang of Four\u201d that wielded supreme power during the Cultural \u200bRevolution from 1966 to 1976, \u200breceived a suspended death \u2060sentence in 1981 for the deaths of tens of thousands during that period of chaos.<\/p>\n Peng was previously best known in China as a soprano singer for the military. As \u200bXi was rising to power in the early 2000s Chinese media got more leeway \u200bto cover her \u2060activities.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he comes home, I\u2019ve never thought of it as though there\u2019s some leader in the house. In my eyes, he\u2019s just my husband,\u201d Peng said in an interview with a state-run magazine in 2007.<\/p>\n She described Xi as frugal, hardworking \u2060and down-to-earth.<\/p>\n Coming \u200bfrom humble beginnings, Peng has championed difficult social causes, such as \u200bpeople living with HIV\/AIDS.<\/p>\n Peng is Xi\u2019s second wife, and the two have a daughter who studied at Harvard. Xi divorced his first wife, the \u200bdaughter of a diplomat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n