As a senator, Marco Rubio even hinted at the need for regime change in China. Now he talks about cooperation.
Before he shook hands with President Xi Jinping of China in Beijing this past week, Marco Rubio was an official enemy of the Chinese state.
As a senator representing Florida, Mr. Rubio was among Mr. Xi’s harshest critics in Washington. He accused the Chinese leader of “crimes against humanity” and of plotting to weaken the United States. Fed up, Mr. Xi’s government placed sanctions on Mr. Rubio in 2020 and banned him from entering the country.
So Mr. Rubio, now President Trump’s secretary of state and national security adviser, posed a sticky problem ahead of Mr. Trump’s first visit to China in his second term. But China creatively fudged the issue, allowing Mr. Rubio to accompany his boss and even meet the Chinese leader.
As Mr. Xi worked his way down a line of U.S. officials outside the Great Hall of the People, Mr. Rubio greeted him cordially without a smile. But Mr. Rubio later appeared delighted by the grandeur of a government he denounced less than 18 months ago as “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.”
Inside the hall, as he stood with fellow U.S. officials at a long wooden table awaiting the start of their meeting with Chinese counterparts, Mr. Rubio seemed to marvel at the grand building, smiling as he repeatedly gestured toward its high ceiling.
Mr. Rubio, who entered the Trump administration with a reputation as a leading China hawk, has become more accommodating toward Beijing. He has talked about looking for areas of cooperation, in contrast to his years of emphasizing the party’s human rights abuses.