MCLC: Peng Liyuan a challenge for image makers

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Peng Liyuan a challenge for image makers
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Source: LA Times (10/21/12):
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-first-lady-201210
21,0,7553976.story

China's incoming first lady a challenge for the image makers
Peng Liyuan, wife of soon-to-be President Xi Jinping, is already famous
and popular. How the Communist Party handles her may be a clue to its
willingness to modernize.
By Julie Makinen

BEIJING — She has a resume that would make U.S. political consultants
drool: A renowned soprano who's performed for troops serving the
motherland, opera fans at Lincoln Center and ordinary Chinese watching
annual TV variety galas, she's also a World Health Organization goodwill
ambassador in the fight against tuberculosis and HIV.

She's volunteered to help earthquake victims and hobnobbed with Bill Gates
at an anti-smoking event in Beijing. An "artist-soldier" in the army, she
holds a civilian rank equivalent to major general, and sometimes belts out
patriotic melodies in military skirt suits (some favorite tunes: "On the
Plains of Hope" and "People From Our Village").

And the 49-year-old with the approachable good looks has the Tiger Mom
base covered too: Her daughter is studying at Harvard.
As China counts down to its carefully scripted 18th Communist Party
congress next month, everyone here knows the country will soon get a new
president, and who it will be. (Spoiler alert: His name is Xi Jinping.)

But there is suspense over one element of the transition: Will the nation
get a full-fledged first lady as well in the form of Peng Liyuan?

The spouses of China's senior leaders have kept a low profile in the
decades since Mao Tse-tung's power-hungry wife, reviled in the official
press as the "White-Boned Demon," shot to infamy as a member of the Gang
of Four. Madame Mao received a suspended death sentence on charges that
included counter-revolution, and later committed suicide.

After the low-key Xi was tapped as Hu Jintao's heir apparent in 2007, many
observers predicted that Peng would be a cosmopolitan, Western-style first
lady embodying a more open, modern China.

Yet crafting a public role for Peng will require Communist Party image
makers to delicately navigate millenniums-old suspicion of women near the
center of power in China, the party's own squeamishness about making
officials' private lives public, and a gossipy media culture increasingly
critical of elites' lifestyles and behavior.

"In China, there's still this strain of thought, particularly in the
countryside, that there are two possible roles for a female: the woman is
either servile … or an empress type," said Ross Terrill, who wrote
biographies of Mao and his wife, Jiang Qing. "There's still a feeling that
women can lead men astray, especially in affairs of the state."

The woman-as-evil-schemer archetype got some recent reinforcement when one
of Xi's rivals for the top party job, Bo Xilai, was ousted from the
Politburo amid a scandal involving his wife, a prominent lawyer named Gu
Kailai, who was convicted of murdering a British businessman.

The popular Peng could be a real asset for Xi, Terrill said. But "if the
party suddenly appeared to be putting her in a box, saying no to her
career, then that could trigger annoyance in the public," he said. "It
could be a test of how modernized they are."

***

The Oct. 1 issue of the glossy celebrity magazine OK China featured a
seven-page spread on the famous politician and his wife: photos of her
"flawless wardrobe," details about their date nights, even a copy of their
marriage certificate. But the pair wasn't Xi and Peng: It was the Obamas.

OK China's editor in chief, Feng Chuxuan, said that since May, the
magazine has also printed articles on the Kennedy family women, former
French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Kate Middleton and Princess Diana —
all in response to reader requests.

But OK China has no plans to write about Peng, he said. "Readers don't ask
us to publish stories about Chinese leaders' wives … because they know
there are no [approved] channels for such stories," he said. "We know we
cannot touch such stories."

Although former and current top officials appear in public regularly with
their wives, the women are mostly quiet bystanders. On the rare occasions
when a leader's wife has made a media splash, it hasn't always been a
positive one.

Peng seems to have avoided some common celebrity pitfalls, like tax
scandals, that could taint her squeaky-clean image. Though she's perfectly
at ease performing in flowing ball gowns, she doesn't conspicuously wear
designer clothing or accessories offstage, which eagle-eyed Internet users
could pounce on as signs of out-of-touch elitism or corruption.

"In China's circle of the performing arts, it is a mission impossible to
find someone more appropriate to represent the image of the Chinese women
than Peng Liyuan," the Southern People Weekly magazine gushed in 2005.
"She has a face like a full moon, shining eyes and white teeth, and she is
upright and straightforward, frank and friendly.… She not only charms the
political and official arena, but also enchants the masses."

But there's clearly sensitivity: Peng's name is blocked on Sina Weibo,
China's version of Twitter, and searches for her on China's censored
Internet turn up limited results.