As my colleagues Mark Landler and Edward Wong report, the man who is expected to be China’s next leader, Vice President Xi Jinping, arrived in the United States on Tuesday for a tour meant to burnish his credentials as a statesman and pave the way for his likely elevation later this year.
But he came without a famous supporter: his wife, the celebrity folk singer Peng Liyuan.
It is not uncommon for Chinese leaders to leave their wives at home, but a report in The Wall Street Journal speculated that Ms. Peng stayed home in part to avoid outshining her husband as he steps onto the world stage. As the BBC noted, “When he was first announced as China’s next leader-in-waiting, he was already vice president, but people still joked: ‘Who is Xi Jinping? He is Peng Liyuan’s husband.’”
Ms. Peng, who holds the rank of major general in the army, has kept a low profile since her husband’s promotion into China’s senior leadership. Ms. Peng is Mr. Xi’s second wife.
The stylistic contrast between the likely next first lady and the current one, Liu Yongqing, can be seen in a photo search. While glamorous shots predominate for Ms. Peng, Ms. Liu is most often seen in formal political settings.
The Web also has numerous videos of Ms. Peng. In one posted to China Central Television’s music channel last year, Ms. Peng sings in uniform as more than a dozen women in red dance behind her. Another production had her in a flowing red and pink gown:
In another clip, Ms. Peng sings the “Laundry Song,” a traditional song of solidarity between the army and the people and one that is sung by many female Tibetan singers, according to High Peaks Pure Earth, a blog that tracks news from Tibet. In the song, Tibetans express gratitude for the Chinese army. The current spate of self-immolations by Tibetan monks indicates that the relationship is a bit more complicated.
According to a Newsweek profile from last year, rather than shying away from Ms. Peng’s celebrity, the Communist Party has sought to capitalize on her fame and association with the army.
She is called a “soldier of the arts” in a state news agency profile page, and her entry on Baidu Knows, China’s officially sanctioned response to Wikipedia, lists her many trips to “various revolutionary districts, impoverished mountainous regions, and minority neighborhoods,” according to The New Yorker’s culture blog. Ms. Peng has also been put forward as a celebrity ambassador for issues of public health, including AIDS.
What the official presentation of the couple omits, the New Yorker piece notes, is “how exactly did the stout Party cadre woo his megawatt wife?”
