Peng has enjoyed a glittering career as a folk singer. XINHUA

Peng Liyuan is more than simply China’s first lady. She has enjoyed a glittering career as a folk singer since the 1980s.

After President Xi Jinping took office in 2013 she has attracted a lot of attention from home and abroad. She is also playing a major role in her country’s efforts to combat the spread of HIV and AIDS and the stigma that surrounds them.

Just weeks after becoming first lady, Peng attracted the limelight and headlines when she accompanied her husband on a trip to Russia, Xi’s fi rst state visit as president.

In a dark-blue trench coat and light-blue scarf, she stepped off the plane in Moscow and onto the world stage, drawing comparisons in the international media to Michelle Obama; Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, former French first lady; and Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge.

She is known for her elegant mixture of Western and classic Chinese styles, while some of the brands she has worn, including little-known Chinese labels, have seen dramatic upticks in business.

In March last year, she wore a classic Chinese robe for a banquet at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam, and in November, she appeared in a traditional blue, floral-patterned qipao to join Xi in welcoming leaders arriving in Beijing for the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Meeting.

Her role in sharing Chinese culture with the world has not stopped with her attire, however.

She accompanied U.S. first lady Michelle Obama, as well as Michelle’s mother and her two daughters, on a tour of Beijing’s Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, in March last year.

The following summer, Peng invited the wives of leaders attending the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing to try their hand at Suzhou embroidery, helping to create a piece called “Silk Road.”

She also led leaders’ wives on a tour of Beijing’s Summer Palace, an ancient royal landscape garden, during the APEC meeting, and took another contingent visiting in March for the Boao Economic Forum in south China to drink coff ee and watch women making Li brocade, a textile produced by the Li ethnic group that has been listed by the U.N. as intangible cultural heritage.

Promoting culture is a major task for a first lady, and Peng is the perfect example, according to Ruan Zongze, vice-president of China Institute of International Studies. “People can discover the beauty of Chinese culture through her dresses and through her ideas,” he said, adding that her image is one of “confidence and decency.”

Peng, who has been prepared for life in the media glare by a decades long career as a singer, has also taken on the serious task of raising awareness of critical public health issues, including the prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS.

She has actively taken part in a campaign to tackle the condition since 2006, when she paid a visit to children affected by HIV and AIDS in eastern Anhui province. There, she made three short films with the children, calling for better care and a guaranteed right to education.

“The filming was rather tough,” recalled Zhang Ying, chairwoman of the Fuyang AIDS Orphan Salvation Association. “The videos were shot in rural areas, and some scenes took an entire day to finish.”

In another short film released in 2012, Together Forever, she called for an end to discrimination against children affected with HIV and AIDS and vowed to carry on her work for as long as it takes, “no matter whether it’s 10 years, 20 years, or 30 years from now.”

“Peng is very well known to the public and is much respected,” Zhang said. “The fact that she has been extending her care to the children will raise more awareness and bring more help to them.”

Yang Xiyu, a research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, added: “Her work presents to the world the efforts that China is making in children's welfare and charity. It delivers a more concrete image than what is shown in government reports or declarations.

“So-called fi rst lady diplomacy originated in the West, but China has seen a series of successful diplomatic activities involving its fi rst lady” since President Xi took office, he said. By accompanying her husband on his fi rst state visit to the U.S. as president, Peng would help improve China’s image, disperse biased stereotypes that the American people may hold, and increase understanding of the country, he added.