WASHINGTON: When Laura Bush ventured to the Thailand-Myanmar border six years ago, the first lady accused China of not doing enough to pressure the brutal Burmese regime. When Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Beijing in 1995, she delivered a blunt assessment of China’s human rights record that reverberated as far away as South Africa.

But as Michelle Obama prepares to journey to China next week with her mother and daughters in tow, one thing is clear: the current first lady does not plan to deliver a similar performance.

Obama’s decision to focus on educating young people — a consistent theme in her rare solo foreign trips — reflects a broader strategic decision to steer clear of political controversies, even after her husband has run his last campaign. She is engaged in a sort of soft diplomacy that is more reminiscent of Barbara Bush’s style than that of her more immediate predecessors, all of whom courted political risks by criticising authoritarian governments overseas.

It reflects a strategy she adopted early in her husband’s tenure: to develop long-term campaigns around specific issues such as obesity, youth empowerment and education, rather than using her position as a bully pulpit.

“This was her decision — not a political one, in the sense that she decided to play it safe,” one former senior administration official wrote in an email, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss East Wing affairs. “She never wants to show up somewhere and just make a speech.”

Anita McBride, Laura Bush’s former chief of staff, said the public “may have unfairly expected” Obama to act in a more groundbreaking way, given her relative youth and career background. But she added, “at the end of the day, every first lady is her own CEO. They do what they want to do and choose how they want to deploy their influence.”

But Obama’s deliberately soft approach has disappointed some feminists and scholars, many of whom have little expectation that she will shift course now. “While I personally might like her to engage in issues such as human rights, the timing probably isn’t right in terms of world politics,” said Katherine Jellison, a professor of women’s studies at Ohio University. “With the crisis in Ukraine and current controversy about her husband’s handling of that situation, it is probably not the right time for the first lady to be causing other potential controversies on the world scene.”

Obama’s effort to avoid controversy is particularly pronounced on the China trip because of the country’s complicated relationship with the US. The two nations are global competitors, and the Chinese government’s human rights record crops up during almost every high-level meeting between the two countries.

This year, for example, Ilham Tohti — an economics professor and outspoken advocate for the Uighur Muslim minority — was arrested and charged with separatism, prompting US officials to again urge China to respect the rights of political activists.

Nineteen years ago, Clinton took direct aim at China’s human rights record during the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, where she spoke at length about the injustice of forced abortions and sterilisations and suppressing free speech.

Other presidential spouses have confronted repressive regimes as well. Bush embraced the cause of Myanmar, holding an unprecedented news conference at the White House urging the country’s isolated military junta to accept help after Cyclone Nargis. Three months later, she made the trip to Myanmar’s border on her way to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, visiting refugees and calling on other countries to pressure Myanmar to change its ways.

Obama, by contrast, will devote her trip, from March 19 to 26, to visiting schools and a university and seeing China’s historic and cultural sites. Speaking at a ceremony at the State Department last week, she said she will emphasise the same themes in China that she did during past visits to Mexico and southern Africa. “I make it a priority to talk to young people about the power of education to help them achieve their aspirations,” she said. “That message of cultural exchange is the focus of all of my international travel.”

Obama’s previous foreign trips amounted to extensions of the consensus-oriented efforts she has led at home to promote better education and physical fitness. In the same way that she has emphasised individual and communal action rather than attacks aimed at snack-food companies, Obama has promoted the aspirations of young people overseas. During her trip to South Africa and Botswana in 2011, the first lady described her approach to a group of reporters as “drawing attention [to] and empowering future leaders.”

Bonnie Glaser, a senior adviser for Asia at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said the Chinese will welcome the idea of a politics-free visit. “The Chinese will be quite eager to keep anything that would reflect negatively on their political system off the table,” Glaser said.

Depending on how she frames it, Obama’s trip will probably be more in line with the one Pat Nixon made with President Richard Nixon in 1972,. “That was her moment, when she made a very indelible impression on the nation,” Anthony recalled, adding that it meant rare pictures of Chinese street corners were beamed into American homes as cameras followed the Nixons’ every step. “She was seen interacting with everyday Chinese citizens.”

Stephanie Coontz, director of research and public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, said the role of the first ladies has evolved dramatically in the modern age, reflecting changes in the expected roles of women. But that also presents the presidential spouse with a “tough choice,” she said. “Do you actually assert your own political agenda even when it differs slightly from your partner’s, which obviously raises other problems, or do you avoid it by being non-political?” Coontz said.

“I’d love to see a model where the spouse [which may someday be a man] was supportive of the partner’s pre-eminent role in world politics but found a way to maintain his or her own separate identity,” she added. “But it’s a really hard tightrope to walk.”

—By arrangement with The Washington Post