Chinese social media is lighting up with love for Melania Trump as she returns to the White House — with users praising her ability to stay stylishly unattached yet supportive of her powerful husband.
The two-time first lady is winning thousands of female fans in the authoritarian country — where women must strike a balance between modern and traditional — for her stoic loyalty and fashion taste, according to users and experts.
“She looks heroic, elegant and resolute, so powerful and majestic, loving it so much,” Joyce Yip, a 39-year-old entrepreneur wrote on Xiaohongshu — China’s equivalent of Instagram — after husband Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration last month.
“Melania is a woman who is low-key, very real, supports her husband in the back and stands with him when he needs her,” said Yip.
Thousands of others were fascinated by her sometimes icy-seeming allegiance to the commander in chief.
A video showing Melania refusing to hold her husband’s hand as they step off Air Force One has raked more than 5 million “likes” on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.
The footage still generates views and comments despite being four years old.
When Melania, 54, wore a wide-brimmed hat to the inauguration, similar products quickly popped up in online shops in China as influencers posted videos showing people how to make their own version.
By conventional standards in China, women are expected to be supportive of their husbands and focus on raising children.
But Melania Trump’s streak of “independence” also appeals to Chinese fans — along with her social climb from small-town Slovenia, experts said.
“Chinese fans like her having both traditional and modern sides of a woman,” said Jingsi Wu, an associate professor of media studies at Hofstra University in New York.
Roughly half a million people liked a November post on Xiaohongshu that joked about how Melania Trump must hate returning to public life as a first lady.
A satire in The New Yorker magazine that poked fun at her less-than-lovey-dovey relationship with the president, 78, also raked in 1 million views on Bilibili, a YouTube-like site.
“The more independent and accomplished she is — but still unwaveringly loyal to [Donald] Trump — the more it reflects his perceived success as a man,” said Rose LuQiu, an associate professor at School of Communication in Hong Kong Baptist University.
Fans also like what they see as sacrifices Melania Trump has made to help her 18-year-old son Barron, with some users saying she only moved back into the White House to give his career a boost.
The first lady craze comes despite President Trump’s open hostility toward China, including on some of the country’s trade practices.
With Post wires
