Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (right) in meeting with Alibaba CEO Jack Ma (left) [Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook]
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is infamous for his everyday fashion- always wearing a gray t-shirt or a grey hoodie. Sometimes, Mr. Zuckerberg wears a grey shirt under a grey hoodie. But in his recent visit to China, Mr. Zuckerberg was seen dressed in a tie-less suit, and some people speculate there's more to look at the situation than just a change in his wardrobe.
This is not the first time for Mr. Zuckerberg to wear a suit. He wore it for a dinner party at the White House, an awards ceremony in Germany, and during a meeting with the Indian Prime Minister Narendar Modi. But why did he wear the suit in China?
Mr. Zuckerberg is visiting China and meeting a lot of important people to pry an access to Facebook in the mainland. China had blocked access to Facebook as a part of state censorship. To connect five billion people via the internet, He first has to break China's "Great Firewall". It was the right action for him to show respect, which could set a footstone to Facebook's advance to China.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg visiting China's Great Wall[Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook]
Obviously, Mr. Zuckerberg's formal behavior succeeded in impressing the Chinese officials. State-run media devoted surprisingly open coverage of the CEO's visit. The media coverage included Mr. Zuckerberg jogging in the Tiananmen Square and his meeting with China's propaganda chief Liu Yunshan and fellow media giant Jack Ma.
But despite the Facebook CEO's effort, many experts see that Facebook re-entering China will not be an easy task as the Chinese government is very stern on censorship on foreign social media. Facebook was blocked from China from July 2009, when riots swept through western China region between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese. The Chinese government saw the social media could pose a threat to the mainland of being a channel for anti-government and liberation propagandas.
During an interview with the Telegraph in 2014, Mr. Zuckerberg spoke on why he wears same grey t-shirt or grey hoodie every day. "I'm in this really lucky position where I get to wake up every day and help serve more than one billion people, and I feel like I'm not doing my job if I spend any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous about my life, so that way I can dedicate all of my energy towards just building the best products and services."
아주경제 박세진 기자 = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
