Abstract:

Recently, a series of soft diplomatic activities have been launched, for example, First Lady Michelle Obama’s visit to China and Peng Liyuan, first lady of China, whose appearance on the international stage, turn people’s attention to the word “Lady Diplomacy” once again, which create new fashion of First Lady Diplomacy between China and America. From the perspective of culture soft power, this paper makes an introduction on the origin and development of Lady Diplomacy between China and America. From analyzing examples of lady diplomatic activities between China and the United States, this paper studies relationships between lady diplomacy and soft cultural power as well as the influence of lady diplomacy on the soft cultural power. The significance of this paper is to point out enlightenments for China’s improving on soft cultural power, which is embodied on Lady Diplomacy. That is to say, China needs to encourage people to spread Chinese culture through cross-cultural communication, to strengthen the influence of Chinese culture, and to enhance the soft cultural power of China.

Keywords: Sino-US Lady Diplomacy; cultural soft power; cross-cultural communication

摘  要：

近来，米歇尔访华、彭丽媛作为中国第一夫人走向国际舞台等一系列柔性外交活动的展开，让“夫人外交”一词再次成为人们关注的焦点，开创了中美第一夫人外交的新风尚。本文从文化软实力的角度，对中美夫人外交的起源、发展历程做了介绍。并从中美两国夫人外交的实例出发，分析了夫人外交和文化软实力之间的关系以及夫人外交对文化软实力的影响。文章意义在于通过对夫人外交和文化软实力的关系以及夫人外交对文化软实力的影响的分析，指出夫人外交作为一种跨文化交际的手段对提升中国文化软实力的启示，鼓励人们通过跨文化交际传播中国文化，增强中国文化影响力，提升中国文化软实力。

关键词：中美夫人外交；文化软实力；跨文化交际

1 Introduction
Lady, namely, the First Lady, as the name implies, is referring to the wife of president or a federal leader. When the head of state visits another country or takes part in activities, the First Lady often goes with him (Xiao Jiaoping, 2012 (4):31-32). The policy of the First Lady Diplomacy originates in the United States, and it is not a public duty but a ceremonial being. In most cases, the first lady plays a role of fashion icon and a glamour star; they have a greater influence on leading the fashion trending. They are elegant, confident, calm, positive, kind, and good at management and political connections. However, they never interfere in the political affairs excessively.   From the activities that the Lady Diplomacy focused on, the ladies prefer to pay more attention to the areas of education, health care, health to express their views on hot topics. These activities show that the Lady Diplomacy exerts an influence mainly from soft ways, for example, culture.