The Chinese government reportedly altered the spelling of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s name ahead of his trip to Beijing with President Trump as a “diplomatic workaround” to sanctions barring him from entering the country.
Rubio was hit with sanctions in 2020, while serving as a Republican US senator from Florida, after he accused China’s communist government of human rights abuses related to its treatment of Uyghurs, a minority ethnic group.
In January 2025, after Rubio was named secretary of state, the Chinese government and state media began transliterating the first syllable of his surname with a different Chinese character for “lu,” Agence France-Presse reported on Wednesday.
Multiple diplomats viewed the change as an immediate way for China to avoid implementing its sanctions against Rubio, who is banned from entering the country under the previous spelling of his name.
“The sanctions target Mr. Rubio’s words and deeds when he served as a US senator concerning China,” Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu told the outlet.
The White House referred The Post to the State Department, which declined to comment.
