Pompeo tweeted last week that China’s ruling Communist Party refused to run Branstad’s op-ed while the Chinese ambassador to the United States “is free to publish in any U.S. media outlet.”

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian responded that Branstad’s article was “full of loopholes, seriously inconsistent with facts and wantonly attacks and smears China.”

The U.S. Embassy had contacted the People’s Daily on Aug. 26 about the piece, asking that it be printed in full without any edits before Sept. 4, the People’s Daily said in a statement posted online.

Pompeo in the Fox News interview said the departure was not related to the op-ed and speculated the ambassador wanted to return to Iowa, his home state.

Branstad, 73, was governor of the major farming state for 22 years over two spans, from 1983 to 1999 and 2011 to 2017.

Early in his first gubernatorial term, he met Xi Jinping, now China’s leader, when the then county-level Communist Party official visited Iowa on a 1985 trade trip.

Trump appointed him ambassador after a vacancy of several months, during which the embassy’s No. 2 official, David Rank, resigned after criticizing the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.

Soon after arriving in Beijing in June 2017, Branstad welcomed American beef back to the Chinese market after a 14-year ban, saying “I know it is a key priority of the president to reduce the trade deficit, and this is one of the ways we can do it.”