Facebook Has No Plans to Launch in China

Don’t hold your breath for Facebook to break into China’s market anytime soon.

Jayne Leung, Facebook’s North Asia director, revealed during the Social Media Matters event in Hong Kong on Friday that the social network still has no plans to launch in China, according to The Next Web.

There have been rumors floating around that Facebook would enter China ever since 2007 when the company first registered the domain name Facebook.cn. Earlier this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited China on vacation, fueling these speculations even more.

For Facebook, China represents an opportunity to vastly expand its user base. The country currently has more than half a billion Internet users, while Facebook is closing in on the 1 billion user mark. However, any plans to launch in the country have been complicated by the fact that the Chinese government has blocked access to Facebook since 2008. While some in China have found ways to get around this restriction, most have turned to other local social networks like Sina Weibo, which play by China’s censorship rules.