{"id":70021,"date":"2026-05-13T21:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T21:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/70021\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T21:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T21:54:09","slug":"china-changed-spelling-of-marco-rubios-name-to-avoid-implementing-sanctions-ahead-of-trump-xi-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/70021\/","title":{"rendered":"China changed spelling of Marco Rubio\u2019s name to avoid implementing sanctions ahead of Trump-Xi meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Chinese government reportedly altered the spelling of Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s name ahead of his <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/13\/us-news\/trump-gets-red-carpet-welcome-after-he-lands-in-beijing-for-closely-watched-summit-with-xi-jinping\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">trip to Beijing with President Trump<\/a> as a \u201cdiplomatic workaround\u201d to sanctions barring him from entering the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/11\/us-news\/trump-admin-live-updates-live-updates-on-iran-war-congress-may-11-12-13-14-15\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Follow The Post\u2019s live coverage of President Trump and national politics for the latest news and analysis<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Rubio was <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2020\/07\/13\/china-sanctions-ted-cruz-and-marco-rubio-over-criticism\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hit with sanctions in 2020<\/a>, while serving as a Republican US senator from Florida, after he accused China\u2019s communist government of human rights abuses related to its treatment of Uyghurs, a minority ethnic group.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Chinese government reportedly altered the spelling of Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s name ahead of his trip to Beijing with President Trump as a \u201cdiplomatic workaround\u201d to sanctions barring him from entering the country. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>President Trump was greeted in Beijing by Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, right. AP<\/p>\n<p>In January 2025, after Rubio was named secretary of state,\u00a0the Chinese government and state media began transliterating the first syllable of his surname with a different Chinese character for \u201clu,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/live-news\/20260512-rubio-with-new-chinese-name-heads-to-beijing-despite-sanctions\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Agence France-Presse<\/a> reported on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Rubio was hit with sanctions in 2020. REUTERS<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe sanctions target Mr. Rubio\u2019s words and deeds when he served as a US senator concerning China,\u201d Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu told the outlet.<\/p>\n<p>The White House referred The Post to the State Department, which declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chinese government reportedly altered the spelling of Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s name ahead of his trip&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[250,12,186,51,1434,48,8970],"class_list":{"0":"post-70021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marco-rubio","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-marco-rubio","11":"tag-politics","12":"tag-sanctions","13":"tag-us-news","14":"tag-xi-jinping"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116569496968084008","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}