Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled with President Donald Trump on his state visit to China this week and played a significant role in the negotiations — despite China banning Rubio from the country in 2020 under sanctions for his public criticism of the country when he was a senator.
China never actually lifted those sanctions.
But, according to The Washington Post, China created a bizarre loophole that let Rubio enter the country anyway — and it has to do with the transliteration of his name.
"Chinese state media and official records began using a different transliterated character for the 'Ru' or 'Lu' in Rubio’s name after Trump named him secretary of state in 2025," said the report. "Beijing made the tweak without fanfare. But this week, it has been a buzzy topic on Chinese social media, with Rubio in Beijing as one of the top officials in the U.S. delegation. During the elaborate welcome ceremony, he stood in the first row of the group of American visitors and shook hands with Xi."
The way that Chinese transliteration of English works involves phonetically matching the pronunciation of the name to the most similar-sounding characters, and sometimes this results in multiple possible spellings for the same name, the report noted. "In Rubio’s case, the change may be a clever diplomatic tool. Because Beijing placed sanctions on him under a different spelling, the new name allowed the U.S. and China to avoid conflict over his entry ahead of the high-stakes summit."
The summit was kicked off with what many experts saw as a snub of the president, as Chinese leader Xi Jinping declined to greet Trump at the airport.
All of this is occurring as Trump left JD Vance behind to guard the home front and announce his new "anti-fraud" measures — which many pundits saw as a humiliation of the vice president.