One of the biggest questions in Washington right now is how President Biden will raise human rights during his upcoming meeting with Chinese general secretary Xi in San Francisco next week. This week, the bipartisan leaders of the Congressional Executive Commission on China wrote to Biden, urging him to speak out forcefully about the plight of specific political prisoners during the sit-down meeting. They sent him a list of names to submit to the Chinese leader.

It’s not yet clear what Biden will end up doing with it, but if the State Department’s recent conduct is any indication, the commission shouldn’t expect too much. Foggy Bottom’s handling of California governor Gavin Newsom’s recent trip to China could speak to where the administration is on these matters.

Newsom traveled to China late last month — the first governor in over four years to make the trip — for a series of friendly meetings about climate change. Before he headed out, Newsom’s office said he would not raise human rights in any of his engagements, provoking a backlash from lawmakers who panned that stance as craven.

At the end of his trip, following meetings with Xi and other top officials, though, Newsom’s office revealed that he had relented and, as its summary of the conversations stated: “The Governor and his Chinese counterparts touched on a variety of human rights issues including Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan, as well as David Lin, a California pastor who has been imprisoned in China since 2006.”

What was left unclear was whether Newsom had raised these issues with Xi. Speaking to a Fox reporter who joined him on the trip, Newsom confirmed that he had declined to bring them up with Xi: “I spent an hour with the foreign minister, and that was the appropriate venue in the conversations I had with the State Department.” He added that his meeting with Xi was initially supposed to be 20 minutes but that it was extended to 45 minutes: “And I didn’t want to miss the opportunity in those 20 minutes to reinforce the reason I was there: Not as president of the United States, not as secretary of state but as governor of one of the largest states and one of the largest economies in the world to focus on low carbon green growth.”

So was Newsom telling the truth about State’s purported guidance, or attempting to deflect? The State Department declined to contradict Newsom’s remarks, when I reached out over email. A spokesperson only wrote that the federal government “as a matter of policy does not restrict” state-level officials’ interactions with foreign officials. That of course does not speak to advice that State might have delivered to the governor. The spokesperson also referred me to Newsom’s office, which, in turn, did not respond to a message requesting comment.