Peng Liyuan, wife of President Xi Jinping, expressed hope on Thursday that China and the United States will continue to step up cultural exchanges and cooperation over cultural heritage protection, in order to enhance friendship between the two peoples.

Peng, who is accompanying Xi on his state visit to the US, joined Melania Trump, wife of US President Donald Trump, on a tour of the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC, which is one of the largest Asian art museums in North America.

As they visited exhibition halls, including the Peacock Room, Peng voiced appreciation for the return of Chinese cultural relics by the US on multiple occasions in recent years. Last week, China received 64 cultural relics, artworks and paleontological fossils from the US authorities at handover ceremonies in Washington, DC, and New York.

After the tour, Peng and Melania watched US teenagers sing Chinese songs together. Peng encouraged them to continue learning the Chinese language and culture, and to become envoys of friendship between the two countries.

The museum, which opened in 1923, houses more than 46,000 objects dating from antiquity to the present from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, according to its website. It also displays an important collection of 19th century and early 20th century American works from the Aesthetic Movement.

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