China's first lady wows on world stage

BEIJING -- Glamorous new first lady Peng Liyuan has emerged as Chinese diplomacy's latest star, charming audiences and cutting a very different profile from her all-but-invisible predecessors on her debut official visit abroad, to Russia.

A celebrated performer on state television, Peng was featured prominently in yesterday's Chinese media coverage of husband and President Xi Jinping's activities in Moscow.

Peng watched song-and-dance routines at a performing arts school on Saturday. Xi's trip continues this week in Tanzania, South Africa and Congo, and Peng is expected to hold other public events.

An internationally popular first lady could help soften China's sometimes abrasive international image and mark a victory in its so-far unsuccessful struggle to win over global public opinion.

In recent years, the wives of China's top officials have gone almost unseen at home and attracted little attention while accompanying their husbands on state visits abroad.

That was in part a negative reaction to Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing, who was widely despised and imprisoned later for her role as leader of the radical Gang of Four, which mercilessly persecuted political opponents during the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

Peng's emerging high profile appears to be an extension of Xi's own confidence as he consolidates his power and presses a more assertive role for China in global affairs, said Steve Tsang, director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham, England. Her training as a singer and stage performer offers perfect preparation for such a role, he said.

Peng's image was splashed across Chinese newspapers over the weekend, shown descending arm-in-arm with Xi from their aircraft on arriving Friday in Moscow. Her visit to the arts school was carried by state broadcaster CCTV on its main Sunday news broadcast.

The tabloid Beijing News ran a full page of items on Peng's appearances yesterday, alongside a photo of her arriving in an elegant Chinese-style silk tunic and skirt at a speech Xi gave Saturday.

Peng, 50, largely retired from public life after Xi was made China's leader-in-waiting in 2007, but in recent years has won new acclaim as an ambassador for the World Health Organization.