Rumors Swirl as Mark Zuckerberg Vacations in China

Shutterbugs spotted Mark Zuckerberg in Shanghai this week, setting off a firestorm of speculation that Facebook could be returning to the Asian nation, where the social network is blocked.

Chinese bloggers posted snapshots of the Facebook founder, wearing his trademark hoodie and jeans, and his girlfriend Priscilla Chan at the Apple store in Shanghai on Tuesday. While Facebook said Zuckerberg is just on vacation, bloggers wondered if his visit might be a sign that China might get access to the social network, the AFP reported.

"Does this mean... Facebook is preparing to be unblocked?" wrote a user on the popular Sina microblogging service, a Chinese version of Twitter, according to the AFP.

Facebook now has at least 845 million users around the world, but has been banned in mainland China since 2009. The social network was firewalled after Chinese authorities said rioters leveraged the site to organize anti-government demonstrations. Twitter, Google, and YouTube are also blocked.

Similar rumors swirled after Zuckerberg was seen late last year , where Facebook is also blocked. Zuckerberg last visited China in 2010. That trip was also called a vacation, but he used the opportunity to visit the headquarters of Internet companies such as Sina, Alibaba, and Baidu.

In its recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a public offering of stock, Facebook estimated it has zero percent penetration in China.

"We continue to evaluate entering China," Facebook said in the filing. "However, this market has substantial legal and regulatory complexities that have prevented our entry into China to date."

In an interview on the Charlie Rose show in November, Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, said entering the Chinese marker is "" but conceded that "you can't connect the whole world and not China."

Zuckerberg, who also appeared on the show, said that, for now, he would rather focus on "places in the world where we can connect people more simply." He added that "if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress," so China is "not the top thing we're thinking about right now."

Earlier last year, a deal between Facebook and Chinese search engine Baidu on a joint social-networking website apparently fell apart when the site was taken down by Chinese authorities.

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