Google – AFP, Felicia SONMEZ (AFP), 21 March 2014
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US First
Lady Michelle Obama (L) and Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese
President Xi Jinping
pose for photographers as they visit the Forbidden City
in Beijing on March 21,
2014 (POOL/AFP, Andy Wong)
|
Beijing —
US First Lady Michelle Obama took her daughters and mother to Beijing's former
imperial palace Friday, on a China tour the White House emphasises will be
light on politics and heavy on personal diplomacy.
Obama, her
daughters Malia and Sasha, and her mother Marian Robinson along with China's
own first lady Peng Liyuan took a guided tour of the sprawling Forbidden City,
waving to onlookers outside the central pavilion known as the Hall of Supreme
Harmony.
The two
women's husbands, Barack Obama and Xi Jinping, are expected to meet next week
on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit in the Netherlands.
Xi later
welcomed the first lady at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.
"I
cherish my sound working relationship and personal friendship I have already
established with your husband, and we stay in close touch through meetings,
phone conversations and correspondence," he said.
"I
wish to thank the US side for sending such a heavyweight ambassador to
China," he added.
Obama said
she was going to focus her visit on education, "which is an important
issue to both of our countries".
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Peng Liyuan
(L), wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, shows US First Lady
Michelle Obama
how to hold a writing brush as they visit a Chinese traditional
calligraphy
class at the Beijing Normal School, in Beijing on March 21, 2014
(POOL/AFP,
Andy Wong)
|
The visit
is Obama's first to China, and her third foreign trip without the US
commander-in-chief since moving into the White House.
Beijing and
Washington have hailed the week-long tour as an opportunity for both first
ladies to highlight the importance of education and
"people-to-people" exchange.
Peng's
'delight'
But critics
in the US have lambasted signals that human rights are off the agenda --
although Obama is scheduled to eat at a Tibetan restaurant in Chengdu -- and
the cost to taxpayers, which the White House has declined to reveal.
Obama, her
family and Peng began the day with an hour-long visit to the No. 2 High School
Attached to Beijing Normal University, where they observed students learning
how to build robots, visited a calligraphy class and dropped in on a group of
pupils playing ping-pong.
The two
first ladies smiled broadly and shook hands on a red carpet in front of the school
-- their first ever meeting -- as students around them waved flags.
Obama told
Peng that it was "truly an honour and a privilege" to visit China
with her family.
"It's
very rare that I have the opportunity to travel outside of the United States,
and it's even more rare to have the opportunity to travel with three
generations -- with my daughters, and with my mother," Obama said.
Peng said
it was "a great delight" to meet her, saying: "In China, we have
an ancient idiom, which means when two people meet for the first time, they may
feel as if they have known each other for many years."
At the
school's Geometry Robotics Lab, students demonstrated their machines for the
first ladies and Obama tried her hand at operating one by remote control.
Obama
exchanged a few table tennis strokes with a young woman, and told the crowd she
was a novice. "My husband plays," she added. "He thinks he's
better than he really is."
At a
calligraphy demonstration a 16-year-old student taught Obama how to draw the
Chinese character for "eternity", before the visitors looked on as
Peng adeptly wrote out a four-character aphorism meaning "Great virtue
promotes growth".
She signed
her name and presented the calligraphy to Obama as a souvenir.
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US First
Lady Michelle Obama plays table tennis during a visit to the Beijing
Normal
School, a school that prepares students to attend university abroad
in Beijing
on March 21, 2014 (POOL/AFP, Andy Wong)
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Later, at
the Forbidden City, they saw a number of sites not open to the general public,
including the Hall of Earthly Tranquility, which used to house the emperor's
concubines.
'China 1
US 0'
The trip
has been front-page news in China's state-run media, and several outlets have
run op-eds hailing the planned focus on "soft" issues such as
education rather than on political topics.
"When
briefing the media about Michelle's trip, the US side said the first lady is to
steer clear of politics, human rights, trade disputes and other bilateral differences
-- issues better handled via official diplomacy," the official Xinhua news
agency wrote in a commentary Thursday.
"That
approach is right. The uniqueness of the role of first ladies is its soft touch
and freedom from the knottiness and even ugliness of hard politics."
Both
women's fashion choices were a hot topic on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of
Twitter, with some Chinese Internet users favourably comparing Peng's formal
attire -- a navy blue jacket and skirt -- to Obama's more casual black trousers,
vest and white silk shirt.
"Michelle's
clothing is too old-fashioned," wrote one Weibo user. "China 1, US
0."
The
question of the trip's cost has drawn attention on both sides of the Pacific.
Chinese
social network users widely circulated a China National Radio report on the
lavish 52,000-yuan-a-night ($8,400) hotel suite where it said the Obama family
were staying.
According
to the hotel website, the suite is 320 square metres (3440 square feet) and
includes a kitchen, bar, sauna, jacuzzi, dining table for six and a treadmill.
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Xi Jinping
and Michelle Obama meet at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse
in Beijing, March 21.
(Photo/Xinhua)
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