Beijing students cheer as Zuckerberg speaks Chinese

BEIJING: China may ban Facebook, but not its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The young billionaire delighted an audience of students at a prestigious Beijing university this week with a 30-minute chat in his recently learned Mandarin Chinese.

He made no explicit mention of China's ban on the social media giant, but an indirect reference to it drew laughter during the question-and-answer session at Tsinghua University.

Zuckerberg noted Facebook already helps some Chinese companies in foreign markets, citing computer maker Lenovo's ads on Facebook in India.

'Speaking of China, I have a more difficult question for Mark, which I hope will not get me fired. What are Facebook's plans in China?' asked the forum facilitator and Facebook employee Wei Xiaoliang, to the laughter and applause from the audience.

'We are already in China,' Zuckerberg said in Chinese, to more laughter. 'We help Chinese companies gain customers abroad,' he said.

'We want to help the rest of the world connect to China.'

Zuckerberg may be hoping to lay the groundwork for an eventual entry into China, but he visited Beijing this week as a newly appointed member of the advisory board for Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management.

Facebook has been banned in China since 2009. Beijing promotes Internet use for business and education but bans material deemed subversive and blocks access to foreign news and social media websites that authorities believe could stoke social unrest.

Zuckerberg's Chinese pronunciation was far from fluent. But he was able to maintain intelligible conversation for half an hour and the students responded with warm cheers for his effort and laughter at his humour.

Zuckerberg married Chinese-American Priscilla Chan in 2012, and set himself the goal of learning Mandarin in 2010.

When asked about his favourite food, he cited the 'Beijing hutong snacks' sold by street-side vendors in the capital.

On social media, many microbloggers noted the irony that Zuckerberg's creation is blocked in China.

Designer David Wang said he would be happy if Facebook was allowed across the so-called Great Firewall of China.

'Because now we have to use software to jump the wall if we want to access Facebook,' he said as the audience laughed.