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"Unnamed Baidu executives have flown to Silicon Valley last week, according to reports from Chinese news website\u00A0Sina. Even though Baidu's PR declined to comment, this news has yet again triggered speculation about the\u00A0possibility\u00A0of Facebook in China.\r\n\r\nWe have been closely following the events that caused us to speculate that Facebook may possibly (finally) reach the 457 million Internet users in China. It all started with Mark Zuckerberg's &amp;quot;educational&amp;quot;\u00A0visit in China last December, where he reportedly met up with some Baidu and China Mobile executives. Facebook has also recently\u00A0launched an office in Hong Kong, which is strategically very close to China.\u00A0Top that off with the &amp;quot;puzzle piece&amp;quot; that Baidu is planning to diversify by going social, which only reinforces all the vague evidences we've collected so far.\r\n\r\nIt's undeniable how critical the country is for Facebook to finally hit the big one-billion mark. The country, however, has not been showing signs of easing up the Great Firewall-- it still aggressively blocks off content, such as the events that\u00A0occurred in Egypt recently.\r\n\r\nOnce again, we're thrown off track in this little, yet significant detective game. However, an analyst from Fudan University in China\u00A0keeps our hopes up by saying that it is still possible because the Great Firewall of China is still under\u00A0development. The regulators are actually willing to listen to foreign countries\u2019 opinions on the development of China\u2019s Internet, without pressure from the foreign countries that the ban should be lifted soon.\r\n\r\nBut I don't suppose the executives flew there for English lessons."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/asia/2011/02/21/chinas-baidu-execs-visit-silicon-valley-for-facebook/>