Secretary of State Marco Rubio is sanctioned by Beijing and officially unable to enter China but is allowed under a linguistic quirk of Mandarin.

Rubio was sanctioned during his time in the Senate over his hawkish stance on China and work addressing human rights in China. Shortly after he was named secretary of state, however, analysts noted that the Chinese government and official media began spelling his name differently. The first character of his transcribed surname was changed, going from ‘卢比奥’ (Lǔ Bǐ’ào) to ‘鲁比奥’ (Lǔ Bǐ’ào), according to the Chosun Daily.