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China officially modified the transliteration of the name of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio into Chinese characters to allow him to enter the country despite existing sanctions that prohibit his access, according to a report by the agency AFP this Thursday.
The maneuver involved changing the Chinese ideogram that transliterates the first syllable of his surname - from "鲁" (Lǔ) to another character with a similar pronunciation but technically different - thus creating a "new name," Marco Lubiao, which does not appear on the Chinese sanctions lists.
The change in spelling began to be implemented in January 2025, when the then-senator was appointed Secretary of State by President Donald Trump, and Chinese state media adopted the new transliteration from that point on.
The official sign with the names of the U.S. delegation at the Trump-Xi summit, held this Thursday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, confirmed the new spelling, technically exempting Rubio from border controls.
This is the first time in his life that Rubio has set foot on Chinese soil.
The sanctions against him were imposed by China on July 19, 2020, when he was a Republican senator from Florida, in retaliation for his role in the Hong Kong Autonomy Act and his support for U.S. sanctions against Chinese officials for abuses against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.
The measures included a ban on entry to mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao, asset freezing, and a prohibition on transactions with Chinese entities.
At the time, the official described the sanctions as an "honor" and used them to criticize the Chinese Communist Party.
The spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the United States, Liu Pengyu, provided an explanation on Tuesday that left the door open for technical reinterpretation: "The sanctions target the words and actions of Mr. Rubio during his time as a U.S. senator in relation to China."
The new Chinese character used for "lú" in Rubio's name has connotations like "hard," "rough," or "coarse," which some analysts interpret as a possible diplomatic dig from Beijing.
The politician of Cuban origin participated in the summit as part of a large U.S. delegation that included Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and business representatives such as Elon Musk, Tim Cook, and Jensen Huang.
Trump described the meeting as "probably the greatest summit in history" and asserted that "the relationship between China and the U.S. will be better than ever."
The paradox did not go unnoticed: the same official who, during his confirmation hearing as Secretary of State, described China as an "unprecedented adversary," and who in April 2026 denounced that Cuba hosts at least 12 intelligence signal facilities operated by China, traveled to Beijing under a name technically different from the one listed on Chinese sanctions.
The sanctions against Rubio remain formally in effect in 2026 and have not been lifted, making the change in transliteration an unprecedented maneuver in contemporary diplomacy.
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