INTERNET: Zuckerberg’s China Kowtow Hits New Lows with Baby Request

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Bottom line: Mark Zuckerberg’s increasingly blatant groveling in his effort to bring Facebook to China could backfire if he’s not careful, and instead he should work behind the scenes and be patient for approval that could come within the next 1-2 years.

Top China Internet official visits Facebook last December

There’s still more than 2 months left in the year, but I’m already giving my “China Brown Noser of the Year” award to Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) founder Mark Zuckerberg, who has become quite unabashed about doing anything he can to win favor from Beijing. Chinese President Xi Jinping was front and center on the Facebook chief’s radar screen during his recent visit to the US, where Zuckerberg managed to attend 2 high profile events where China’s most powerful man was present.

I previously wrote about the first event in Seattle where numerous US tech leaders were also present. (previous post). But it was the latter White House event later in the week that prompted me to give Zuckerberg the dubious honors as China brown noser supreme. That’s because reports earlier this week revealed that Zuckerberg actually approached Xi at the White House dinner and requested an honorary name for his unborn daughter from the Chinese president.

According to the reports, which appear to have been leaked well after the September 25 dinner, Zuckerberg made his humble request to Xi using his recently learned Mandarin on behalf of the daughter that he and his wife Priscilla are expecting. (English article) Xi was apparently quite surprised by the request, which was far more personal than favors other business leaders at the dinner were seeking. But Xi apparently gave a quick reply of “No”, though a Zuckerberg spokesperson said the media reports were incorrect.

This certainly isn’t Zuckerberg’s first attempt to curry favor with China, and with Xi specifically. The Facebook founder has made numerous trips to China over the last few years, and is quite frank about saying he wants Facebook to have a presence in the market. Facebook has been blocked in China since 2009, reportedly because it contained discussions and members considered undesirable by Beijing censors.

Turning up the Volume

Most of Zuckerberg’s early efforts were relatively low key and behind the scenes, involving personal trips to China and the opening of a sales office in Beijing last year. But he must have decided the low-key approach wasn’t working so well, and last year raised the volume by quite a few decibels. His new louder campaign made its debut last December, when Zuckerberg welcomed one of China’s top Internet officials to Facebook’s Silicon Valley office during his trip to the US. (previous post)

During that trip by Lu Wei, minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China, Zuckerberg’s bigger target was apparently President Xi. That’s because during the visit, Zuckerberg strategically placed a copy of Xi’s book “The Governance of China” on his own desk, and later told Lu he had asked several employees to read it to better understand China’s socialist system.

The 2 meetings with Xi during the Chinese president’s US trip, together with revelations of his request about selecting a Chinese name for his unborn daughter, show just how grovelling Zuckerberg can be in his pursuit of getting into China. Then again, Zuckerberg is considered a pioneer in the social media space and is also a billionaire many times over, so who am I to argue with his grovelling ways?

At the end of the day, a certain amount of brown-nosing is necessary for doing business anywhere in the world, especially in a country like China where personal relationships are especially important. But in this case I would also caution Zuckerberg to be patient and not overdo things, at the risk of looking just a bit overeager and also perhaps becoming just a bit annoying to Chinese leaders.

Zuckerberg and Facebook have certainly given China plenty of face through their recent attention, which is exactly what Beijing craves as it tries to justify many of its controversial censorship policies to both its own people and the world. But nothing moves quickly in this highly bureaucratic country, and in this case many internal debates will probably need to occur within the Chinese government before Facebook finally gets its coveted formal approval to enter the market.

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