# Peng Liyuan

Peng Liyuan (Chinese: 彭丽媛; pinyin: Péng Lìyuán; born 20 November 1962) is a Chinese contemporary folk singer and the wife of Xi Jinping, current General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and President of China.
Peng gained popularity as a singer from her regular appearances on the annual CCTV New Year's Gala, a widely viewed Chinese television program that airs during the Chinese New Year. She won honors in singing competitions nationwide. Her most famous singles include People from Our Village, Zhumulangma, and On the Field of Hope. Peng also sang the theme songs of several popular TV series, such as The Water Margin (1998).
In 1986, she received the Plum Blossom Award, China's highest theatrical award, for her lead role in The White Haired Girl. She was the president of then People's Liberation Army Academy of Art between 2012 and 2017, and vice president of the All-China Youth Federation between 2005 and 2010.
She is known within China for her fashion sense, credited to her personal couturier Ma Ke. In 2014, Peng was listed as the 57th Most Powerful Woman in the World by Forbes.

## Biography

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, he 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, the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee 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, and in 1985, she rushed to the front line of the Battle of Laoshan to console the soldiers. 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 (CCP). 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.
Peng's singing of On the Field of Hope, a song about the generational and emotional ties of people who work the land, made the song famous in the 1980s.
In 1986, she won the 1st Prize for Professional Ethnic Singing in the Second National Young Singers Grand Prix organized by CCTV. At the end of the same year, she was introduced to Xi Jinping by a friend, and after graduating from college in 1987, she was recommended for a master's degree in acoustics at the China Conservatory of Music. On 1 September 1987, she married Xi Jinping, then the Vice Mayor of Xiamen. In May 1990, she defended her thesis and received her master's degree, becoming the first master's degree in folk vocal music trained in China. In November 1991, when Daughter of the Party premiered, Peng starred in the role of Tian Yumei, the first heroine of the play, which became the first opera portrayal of the opera that had been stamped with Peng Liyuan's original imprint.
In 2002, Peng was appointed as a visiting professor at the Shandong University Of Arts, and in September 2004, she was appointed as a visiting professor at the China Conservatory of Music. In September 2005, at the invitation of the organizing committee of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Peng Liyuan performed the Chinese opera Psalms of Mulan for the first time at the Lincoln Center in New York City, and was awarded the Distinguished Artist Award by the Artistic Committee of the Lincoln Center for the Arts.
In November 2007, the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party, the Ministry of Personnel and the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles awarded Peng Liyuan and others the honorary title of "National Youth and Middle-aged Literary and Artistic Workers of Virtue and Excellence". In the same year, the Ministry of Health appointed Peng Liyuan as the National Ambassador for tuberculosis prevention and treatment. Since then, Peng Liyuan has been actively involved in tuberculosis prevention and treatment publicity work, participating in national "World Tuberculosis Prevention and Control Day" publicity activities annually, and paying condolences to patients with tuberculosis on many occasions.
Her husband became the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2012 and President of the People's Republic of China in March 2013. She is actively involved in politics and is a member of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. She has been a WHO Goodwill Ambassador for tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS since 2011.
Since 2012, Peng has 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 (CMC) to serve as a senior adjudicator.
On 20 November 2014, Massey University in New Zealand conferred upon Peng an Honorary Doctorate in recognition of her "international contributions to the performing arts and health and education programmes". In 2016, she was named UNESCO Special Envoy for the Promotion of Girls' and Women's Education. Peng sang in a song-and-dance number in 2007 shown on Chinese television that featured Tibetans thanking the Chinese military for "liberating" them. On 6 December 2017, Juilliard School, a private performing arts conservatory in New York City, also conferred Peng an Honorary Doctorate at the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing, in recognition of her accomplishment as an outstanding artist, and also for her contribution to cultural exchanges between China and the United States.

## Controversy and criticism

Directly after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in June 1989, Peng Liyuan sang for the martial-law troops. A photo showing the scene in which Peng, wearing a green military uniform, sings to helmeted and rifle-bearing troops seated in rows on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, was swiftly scrubbed from China's Internet before it could generate discussion online. However, the image — seen and shared by outside observers — revived a memory of the leadership's preference to suppress. The image was from the back cover of a 1989 issue of the People's Liberation Army Pictorial, a publicly available military magazine.

## Personal life

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. Xi was reportedly academic during their courtship, inquiring about singing techniques. 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 couples spent more time devoted to their respective careers until Xi Jinping promoted to Beijing. They have one child, a daughter named Xi Mingze, who was born in 1992, nicknamed Xiao Muzi.