US President Donald Trump's 5-year-old granddaughter Arabella Kushner has shot to stardom in China after footage of her singing a Chinese folk song and reciting ancient poems in front of President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan on Friday went viral over the weekend.
Arabella, the daughter of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, sang "Jasmine," a classic folk song, and recited Tang poetry and quotes from "Three Character Classic," an 800-year-old Song Dynasty text, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
After Ivanka posted the video of her daughter's performance on her Twitter account on Friday, it was reposted on Chinese websites, and has been played 19.4 million times on qq.com, a Chinese news portal run by Tencent, receiving 9.9 million clicks on Sina Weibo as of press time. "Very proud of Arabella and Joseph for their performance in honor of President Xi Jinping and Madame Peng Liyuan's official visit to the US!" Ivanka wrote on her Twitter account. The meeting at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, from Thursday to Friday shows that US President Donald Trump and his family are trying their best to build friendly ties with China and establish a good relationship with President Xi and his wife Peng, experts said. Family means future "Trump's arrangement at Mar-a-Lago is truly thoughtful," said Wanglily, a Chinese Net user on guancha.cn, a Chinese news portal. The netizen noted that the song "Jasmine" had also been sung by Peng at the Spring Festival Gala 2005 on China Central Television. The education of the next generation showed the Trump family's acknowledgement of China's current achievement and its potential, An Gang, a US studies expert and member of the academic committee of Pangoal Institution, a Beijing-based think tank, told the Global Times. An also said that, as a family with a strong sense of business, the Trumps know how to invest in their future and shape a special relationship with China for their family and the country, This is not the first time Arabella has shown her knowledge of Chinese culture.
During the Chinese New Year in February, she sang the song 'Happy New Year' in Chinese which her mother also posted on her Twitter account before Trump sent his New Year greetings to China. Arabella also came to the Chinese embassy in Washington DC with her mother to attend a New Year Party. "Ivanka and her husband played significant roles in facilitating this meeting. Ivanka and her husband sat next to President Xi and his wife during the dinner, which also showed that the family is trying to establish a direct relationship with the Chinese president," Diao Daming, a research fellow at the Institute of American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times. "Trump and his family members' 'granddaughter diplomacy' have won applause from Chinese people, as his daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter are all famous and popular in China," Diao said. Additionally, Trump is also gathering diplomatic resources for his family, An said. "He is trying to make his own family become a new powerful political family in the US, just like the Clintons, Bushes and Roosevelts." The meeting in Mar-a-Lago marks a friendly beginning for a new start to Sino-US relations, experts said. During the meeting, there was little sign of the tension on display in Trump's frostier encounter with Angela Merkel in March, and "the atmosphere was warm and comfortable. Trump was also very cooperative," though Trump has used many tough and offensive words to China in the past, An said. Diao said that "the Trump family is very different from other conservative Republicans. They welcome Chinese culture and let their children learn Chinese culture, rather than hold a bias and hostility… Therefore, this is good for the US to better understand China's behavior and position, and improve Sino-US relations.
Source from Global Times