With a crew-cut, white shirt and black pants, Song Xi looks more like a soldier than an average female undergraduate at Peking University.

"You remind me of the female soldier in the movie Operation Red Sea," President Xi Jinping told the 24-year-old during a visit to Peking University on Wednesday.

Watch: Song sings a theme song for the movie Operation Red Sea.

The movie was based on the People's Liberation Army Navy's prompt evacuations of hundreds of Chinese and foreign nationals from the troubled coast of Yemen in 2015.

Song was the only student who spoke at the on-campus symposium with Xi.