"Michelle Obama of China" Peng Liyuan will not be meeting real Michelle Obama during her weekend at "Camp David of the West" Rancho Mirage. (She and husband Xi Jinping are probably chilling with Barack Obama in southern California as we speak.) This is either a thoughtless snub, a shrewdly calculated snub, or evidence that MObama "is just really busy" because Sasha and Malia are about to start summer vacation.
Foreign Policy's Isaac Stone Fish points out that Peng Liyuan's career as a Chinese military propaganda singer means she is a high-ranking member of the People's Liberation Army, and thus a more polarizing figure than you would usually find in a MObama meet-and-greet. (Peng sang in praise of the Chinese military in Tiananmen Square after the 1989 crackdown.) Nonetheless, the Chinese are expected to be "disappointed" by MObama's absence, in part because she is a popular figure in China, too. Commentators like to point to Peng Liyuan and her daughter as emblems of modern Chinese femininity. Michelle and her daughters are often held up for comparison, the New York Times explains,
Will we at least get to see some Chinese First Lady outfits? Before arriving in California, Peng and Xi toured Latin America. Above, outfits Peng wore in Mexico and Costa Rica. (Peplum!) Unfortunately, Peng is not so good at posing to maximize outfit exposure — perhaps because nations that lack free speech have relatively weak paparazzi corps.
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