In June 2014 during the 113th United States Congress, Republican Senator Ted Cruz introduced a simple resolution while Republican Representative Frank Wolf also proposed to rename the street in front of the Chinese Embassy after the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. This would make the embassy's new address "1 Liu Xiaobo Plaza". But both of them got stuck in the introduction stage. BBC reported that Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, dismissed the lawmakers' move as "nothing more than a sheer farce", and restated the government's position that Mr. Liu had been convicted for breaking domestic laws. "The New York Times" also reported that when Hua was asked if China would retaliate by renaming the street in front of the Embassy of the United States, Beijing, she smiled and asked rhetorically, "Do you think China should take identical action as America?" Many Chinese commented online, suggesting China do just that. Proposal included "Prisoners Abused Street," "Edward Snowden Street," "Osama bin Laden Road" and even "Monica Lewinsky Street."