Facebook back in China?

Rumors about Facebook’s comeback in China have been surging on the Internet as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been in Beijing for a few days.

Facebook Chief in Beijing

Facebook Chief who is currently on vacation in China has met the leaders of one of the most popular Chinese Internet portal, namely Sina.com. A few days ago, Mr Zuckerberg named Time magazine’s person of the year also met Baidu CEO Robin Li.

In addition to his interest in learning Chinese Mandarin, Facebook Chief never hid his willingness to reenter the Chinese market, currently holding the world’s largest Internet population.

No Facebook in China

Facebook has been blocked in China since July 2009. Other social media sites, like Twitter and Flickr, are also banned in China. 

China is still one of the main remaining holdouts from Facebook worldwide domination (Facebook has more than 500 million users). Thus, the Chinese market would represent a vast market of new users. 

The country already has two major domestic social networks (Kaixin and RenRen), greatly similar to Facebook. 

What strategy for Facebook in China?

The question is now to know whether Facebook Chief has used his trip to start persuading Chinese leaders to allow again Facebook into China.

To face the local competition and become a major player in the Chinese SNS market, Facebook will have to obey Chinese regulations. Not sure Facebook is ready to do so...

One of the other alternatives for Facebook in China would be to establish a partnership with a domestic player.