Facebook is currently banned in China, which is exactly why there is no stopping the world's biggest social network from coaxing its way into what could be its biggest market.
A Chinese state-run news website reports that Lu Wei, minister of China's Cyberspace Administration, visited Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, where Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg looked to have turned on the charm faucet during the top Chinese Internet regulator's visit.
Pictures published on China.com.cn show Lu and Zuckerberg greeting each other with broad smiles like old friends. Lu also looked please to find a book written by Chinese President Xi Jinping titled "The Governance of China" conveniently sitting on the Facebook chief's desk during the visit.
"I've bought this book for my co-workers," Zuckerberg reportedly told him. "I want them to understand socialism with Chinese characteristics."
Apparently, Zuckerberg also put to good use his knowledge of Mandarin and spoke to the Chinese minister in his native language, which the Facebook founder learned as part of a yearly self-improvement challenge. His wife Priscilla Chan traces her roots back to China. Zuckerberg also benefited from his knowledge of Mandarin when he conducted a 30-minute question-and-answer session with students at the Tsinghua University in Beijing earlier this year.
Apart from the book, Lu also found a miniature mascot of the Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi in Zuckerberg's office. Xiaomi, which has become the biggest smartphone company in China, is slowly climbing up the ranks in terms of global market share, just behind Samsung and Apple.
It is unclear when or why the visit to Facebook's headquarters took place, but Lu is in the United States to attend an Internet industry forum concerning American-Chinese ties. The pictures also show the Chinese regulator speaking with Apple CEO Tim Cook, where he is showing Lu a device that looks to be a wrist watch, and Amazon's Jeff Bezos.
Facebook has been vocal about Zuckerberg's intentions to re-enter China. With more than 600 million Internet users, the nation's biggest country could certainly give the social network a new venue for massive growth. However, with Lu's aggressive stance on censorship and the banning of Facebook from China in 2009, Facebook has resorted to attracting Chinese advertisers to its platform.
In September, Lu was believed to have said that Facebook "cannot" enter China, saying that any party "hurting China's interests, China's security" or "hurting the interests of Chinese consumers" won't be allowed to exist within the nation's borders. Still, in October, the Internet minister clarified his position on Facebook entering the country, saying that he did not explicitly say that the social network has no hope about getting inside China.
"China has always been very hospitable, but we can choose who enters our house. We could not allow any companies to enter China and make money while hurting the country," Lu said. "I didn't say Facebook could not enter China, but nor did I say that it could."
