First Lady To Visit China
Michelle Obama plans a weeklong solo visit to China this
month that includes meetings with China’s first lady and high school and
university students. It will be her first visit to the Asian economic powerhouse. In an announcement Monday on the White House blog, the first
lady says a China visit is important because it is the most populous country in
the world, with more than 1.3 billion people, and is an important world actor.
Mrs. Obama will travel from March 19-26, spending several
days in the capital of Beijing before stops in the central city of Xian and the
southwestern city of Chengdu, the White House said. Her schedule includes a
meeting with Peng Liyuan, the wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Mrs. Obama missed meeting China’s first lady last June when
the newly installed Xi,
accompanied by his wife, traveled to Southern
California for a summit with President Barack Obama.The presidential-level
meetings were around the time of Sasha Obama’s 12th birthday, and the White
House said Mrs. Obama stayed in Washington with family. She wrote a letter to Peng Liyuan welcoming her to the U.S.
and expressing hope that they would meet soon in China, the White House said.
In China, Mrs. Obama will focus on the power and importance
of education, including in her own life, during visits to a high school and a
university in Beijing, and a high school in Chengdu.
She recently began an effort to encourage America’s young
people, including some of the most economically disadvantaged, to pursue a
college education. On past trips outside the U.S., she also has made the same
point to students from the host country. Mrs. Obama grew up in a poor Chicago
family, but earned degrees from two of America’s best universities.
In China, she will be accompanied by daughters, Malia and
Sasha, and her mother, Marian Robinson, who lives at the White House. President
Obama will not be on the trip; he is scheduled to depart the U.S. later that
week for stops in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Saudi Arabia. Mrs. Obama is encouraging American students to follow her
trip on social media and the White House website, where she will post a daily
travel blog. In preparation for the trip, she scheduled a visit Tuesday to a
Washington charter elementary school with a Chinese-immersion, international
baccalaureate program.
In her blog post, the first lady said countries today are no
longer isolated and face many of the same challenges, whether it is to provide
students with a good education, combat hunger, poverty and disease or address
threats like climate change. “These issues affect every last one of us, so it’s
critically important that young people like you learn about what’s going on not
just here in America, but around the world,” Mrs. Obama said. “Because when it
comes to the challenges we face, soon, all of you will be leading the way.” “That’s why everywhere I go, whether it’s here in the U.S.
or abroad, I meet with young people to hear about your challenges, hopes and
dreams – and that’s what I’ll be doing in China as well,” she said. “I’ll be
focusing on the power and importance of education, both in my own life and in
the lives of young people in both of our countries.”
Among recent first ladies, Laura Bush traveled to China with
President George W. Bush, and Beijing was the place where Hillary Rodham
Clinton made her now famous declaration at a United Nations women’s conference
in 1995 that “women’s rights are human rights.”
Mrs. Obama’s trip will be a highly visible endeavor, but the
fact that she’s taking the rest of her family suggests “she’s not going in
search of a crusade of one sort or another,” said Jonathan D. Pollack, a senior
fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution think
tank in Washington. “The clear intent here is not to touch any particular hot
buttons.”
Mrs. Obama’s previous solo travels outside the U.S. as first
lady were to Mexico in 2010, and Botswana and South Africa in 2011.
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