Peng Liyuan

Peng Liyuan (Chinese: 彭丽媛; pinyin: Péng Lìyuán; born 20 November 1962) is a Chinese singer who is serving as the First Lady of China since 2012 as the wife of Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party since 2012. Peng became famous in the early 1980s with "On the Hopeful Fields". Her first and main songs include "Fellow Villagers", "Mount Everest", " I Love You, the Snow of the North", "We Are the Yellow River and Mount Tai", "Yimeng Mountain Ballad", "High Clouds in the Sky", "Heavy Snow in the Cold Winter," and "People of the Five Continents Laugh Together".

In 1986, she received the Plum Blossom Award for her performance in The White-Haired Girl. She also recorded theme songs for television series, including The Water Margin (1998). She was the president of People's Liberation Army Academy of Art between 2012 and 2017, and vice president of the All-China Youth Federation between 2005 and 2010. In 2014, Peng was listed as the 57th Most Powerful Woman in the World by Forbes.

Peng Liyuan was born in Yuncheng County, Shandong Province, China. Her father, Peng Longkun, was the director of Yuncheng County Cultural Center, and her mother Li Xiuying was a major opera singer in the Yuncheng County Yu Opera Troupe. Influenced by her mother, at the age of 4 to 5 years old, she was able to sing Yu opera excerpts. In 1976, at the age of 14, Peng Liyuan was admitted to the Shandong Province Yuncheng No.1 Middle School. In 1977, she was admitted to the Shandong Fifty-Seven School of the Arts (renamed the Shandong University Of Arts at the end of 1978), under the tutelage of Wang Yinsuan, specializing in folk vocal music. In 1979, she won the Excellent Prize of the Shandong Province Song and Dance Concert.

In 1980, while participating in a cultural performance in Beijing, she won the Excellent Prize for the songs Baoleng Tune and My Hometown, Mt. Yimeng, which shook up the Beijing's music scene. Afterwards, she went to Finland, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Norway and Iceland with the China National Orchestra. In the same year, Peng joined the Avant-garde Song and Dance Troupe of the Political Department of Jinan Military Region of the Chinese People's Liberation Army as a civilian soldier.

In 1981, Peng was admitted to the China Conservatory of Music as a tertiary student, where she studied under the famous singer Jin Tielin. 1982 was a key year that Peng Liyuan became familiar to the Chinese audience. In that year, while participating in the CMG New Year's Gala organized by China Central Television (CCTV), she sang On the Fields of Hope and I Love You, the Snow in Sai Bei, which won the audience's favor and thus established her unique position in the Chinese folk vocal music world. In 1983, she was admitted to the vocal class of the China Conservatory of Music as an undergraduate under the tutelage of Jin Tielin and Guo Lanying.

In 1983, when Kim Jong Il, a member of the Presidium of the Politburo of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), visited China for the first time, Peng Liyuan sang a bilingual rendition of the well-known North Korean song The Flower Girl.

In 1984, she was transferred to the Song and Dance Troupe of the General Political Bureau, visiting and performing to units at the front line of Laoshan in the 1980s. In the same year, Peng won the gold medal in the National Singing Group of the First National Nie Er - Xinghai Vocal Works Competition organized by the Ministry of Culture. In July of the same year, she joined the Chinese Communist Party. In 1985, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the victory in the war and the 40th anniversary of the premiere of The White-Haired Girl, Peng Liyuan appeared in Beijing's Tianqiao Theatre, where she became the third-generation "Xi'er" after Wang Kun and Guo Lanying, and achieved the "Plum Blossom Award" - the highest honor in China's theater industry.

Her husband became the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (paramount leader) in November 2012, and President of China in March 2013.

She is known within China for her fashion sense, credited to her couturier Ma Ke.

From 2012 to 2017, Peng served as the director of the People's Liberation Army Academy of Art. In mid-April 2017, the academy was officially renamed the Academy of Military Culture of the National Defense University (NDU). Instead of serving as the director of the renamed Academy of Military Culture of the NDU, Peng was transferred to the Accreditation Committee of the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission to serve as a senior adjudicator.

She is actively involved in politics and is a member of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Her military rank is Major-general and she has a role in the Central Military Commission's Cadre Assessment Committee. She has been a WHO Goodwill Ambassador for tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS since 2011. On 27 March 2014, Peng Liyuan, accompanying Xi Jinping during his European visit, was bestowed the honorary title of "Special Envoy for the Promotion of Girls' and Women's Education" by UNESCO at its headquarters. Peng addressed that it is a commendable endeavor for women and girls to attain education. She is committed to maximizing her efforts to assist more children, advocate for the right to education for further girls, and facilitate transformative changes in their lives.

Between 20–26 March 2014, at the invitation of Peng Liyuan, Michelle Obama, then First Lady of the United States and wife of President Barack Obama, traveled to Beijing, Xi'an, and Chengdu. This was Michelle Obama's first visit to China, as well as the first solo official visit to China by a US First Lady in history.

Peng Liyuan was introduced by friends to Xi Jinping in 1986, when Xi was working as the deputy mayor of the eastern port city of Xiamen, Fujian. The couple married on 1 September 1987. Four days later, Peng Liyuan returned to Beijing to appear in the National Art Festival, and then immediately departed for the United States and Canada to perform. For many years after their marriage, the couple spent more time devoted to their respective careers until Xi Jinping was promoted to Beijing.

They have one child, a daughter named Xi Mingze, who was born in 1992, nicknamed Xiao Muzi.