China welcomes US First Lady Michelle Obama's visit to China later this month, which will focus on education, a foreign ministry spokesman said Tuesday.

Qin Gang made the remark at a daily news briefing, noting that China will release details about the trip at a suitable time.

Mrs Obama will make an official visit to China between March 19 and 26, and will meet her Chinese counterpart Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, AFP reported.

Mrs Obama will focus on education during the trip and will be visiting a university and two high schools in Beijing and Chengdu in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, she wrote on the White House Blog Monday.

"My husband and I take the time to visit countries like China because we know that today, more than ever before, our lives here in America are connected to the lives of people around the world," she wrote.

"Mrs Obama is to make a symbolic gesture through 'First Lady diplomacy,' trying to ease the bilateral tension caused by US President Barack Obama meeting the Dalai Lama in late February, and to strike a balance between America's allies in Asia and China as her husband's upcoming trip to Asia in April does not include China," Ni Feng, deputy director of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

Also, the current situation in Ukraine has become significant to relations between major countries, and China is one that both Russia and the West want to win over on the issue, Ni said. 

Ni noted that as the competition between the two countries increases and may have a negative influence on bilateral relations, public diplomacy can play a more important role in keeping Sino-US ties stable.

Mrs Obama will be accompanied by her daughters - Malia, 15, and Sasha, 12 - and her mother Marian Robinson.

She missed meeting Peng in June 2013, when Xi and Peng traveled to California for a mini-summit with President Obama, while Mrs Obama stayed in Washington with relatives.