US first lady Michelle Obama (R) laughs as she and students attend a virtual discussion with American youth through the Internet at the Peking University in Beijing, on March 22. US first lady met her Chinese counterpart on Friday, a long-anticipated encounter during a week-long trip to promote education and cultural ties. Obama, who is visiting China with her mother and two daughters, is expected to forgo discussion of trade, human rights and the tangle of other issues that have weighed on US-China relations. Instead, she plans to focus on building goodwill through soft diplomacy. Reuters/Petar Kujundzic