Subtle dig or linguistic loophole? Speculation Rubio’s new Chinese name skirts sanctions

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives ahead of a state banquet for US President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People Beijing on May 14, 2026. Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI /AFP via Getty Images

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Would Rubio under a different spelling still be a Rubio?

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That was the question posed on Chinese social media this week during U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit to Beijing regarding a prominent member of his entourage. Trump’s top diplomat, Marco Rubio, who was banned from China in 2020, was spotted at a state banquet on Thursday sporting a nameplate with a new spelling of his name.

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The character used to represent “ru” in Rubio’s first syllable was altered, leading to much speculation that a linguistic workaround helped Rubio skirt a travel ban. Chinese spellings of English names are transliterated phonetically, and there can be multiple characters that sound similar to English words.

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China imposed sanctions on Rubio twice, in 2020, amid a tit-for-tat retaliation with the previous Trump administration. Then a senator representing Florida, Rubio would regularly criticize the Chinese government for its treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang and its handling of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

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Two diplomats who spoke to AFP in the lead-up to this week’s summit said the spelling change was due to Rubio being sanctioned under the past spelling. In fact, the tweak, which changed his name from 卢比奥 to 鲁比奥, started appearing in government notices and Chinese state media shortly before he became Trump’s secretary of state last year. At his confirmation hearing to become the Secretary of State, Rubio described China as the “most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary” the U.S. had ever confronted but has maintained a more diplomatic tone when speaking about Beijing since taking the position.

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Ahead of Trump’s visit, a Chinese government official was asked about Rubio being allowed into the country as part of the U.S. delegation. “The sanctions are aimed at Mr. Rubio’s actions and rhetoric on China when he served as a U.S. senator,” Liu Pengyu, the spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, told media. Officials have not confirmed that the transliterary tool is what allowed Rubio in and whether the sanctions against him have been dropped.

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In any case, changing Rubio’s Chinese name from the original has at least one significance. Substituting the neutral ‘卢’ with ‘鲁’ comes with a host of unflattering connotations. As the London’s The Times points out, it means “reckless,” “stupid” or “crass.”

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While none of those words are direct synonyms for unsubtle, that’s another charge that came at Rubio on his high-stakes trip to China. A viral photo of Rubio dressed in a grey Nike tracksuit aboard the Air Force One drew comparisons to the attire Nicolas Maduro wore when he was photographed in a helicopter after U.S. forces arrested him in January.

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Rubio was “rocking the Nike Tech ‘Venezuela’ on Air Force One!” said Steven Cheung, the White House communications director. However, the Secretary of State, who doubles as the national security adviser, denied taking any style cues from the deposed Venezuelan leader.

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“You know what — he copied me because I had it before. I mean, I don’t know when he bought his,” Rubio said of Maduro in an interview with “NBC Nightly News” from Beijing, according to AFP.

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