China’s first lady Peng Liyuan turns soft power on US audience

Sept 25 – 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…