US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was due to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday alongside US President Donald Trump, despite sanctions from China, whose new approach toward him included changing the spelling of his name, AFP reports, according to UNN.
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As a US Senator, Rubio was a staunch advocate for human rights in China, which responded by twice imposing sanctions on him—a tactic more commonly used by the United States against adversaries.
On Tuesday, China stated it would not prevent Rubio, now 54 and visiting China for the first time, from boarding Air Force One with Trump, the first US president to visit the Asian nation in nearly a decade.
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"The sanctions are directed against Mr. Rubio's words and actions regarding China when he was a US Senator," said Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu.
China appears to have already found a diplomatic workaround after Trump appointed Rubio as his Secretary of State and National Security Advisor.
Shortly before he took office in January 2025, the Chinese government and official media began transliterating the first syllable of his surname with a different Chinese character, "Lu."
Two diplomats said they believed the change was an operational way for China to avoid enforcing sanctions, as Rubio had been banned from entering the country under the old spelling of his surname.
A State Department official confirmed only that Rubio was traveling with Trump.
Rubio's presence aboard the presidential plane quickly drew attention online for another reason: the White House released a photo of him relaxing in a Nike tracksuit similar to the one worn by ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro when US forces captured him in January.
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Rubio, a Cuban-American who is fiercely anti-communist, was a key author of a congressional bill that imposed broad sanctions on China for the alleged use of forced labor of the predominantly Muslim Uyghur minority, allegations that Beijing denies.
He also spoke out against Beijing's crackdown in Hong Kong.
At his confirmation hearing for Secretary of State, Rubio focused on China, calling it an unprecedented adversary.
However, since taking office, Rubio has supported Trump, who calls his counterpart Xi Jinping a friend, and has focused on building trade relations while downplaying the importance of human rights.
Last year, Rubio brought relief to Taiwan by stating that the Trump administration would not negotiate the future of the self-governing democracy to secure a trade deal with China.