Corporate China | Weibo: Xiaomi finds fans in Facebook, Vancl

High-flying smartphone maker Xiaomi is at the centre of 2 recent strings of microblog posts, one touching on an interesting new connection with Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) and the other hinting at an increasingly cozy relationship with struggling online clothing seller Vancl. Interestingly, Xiaomi's talkative co-founder and chief executive Lei Jun is largely absent from the dialogue in both cases, which each has sensitive overtones, implying that perhaps we could see more news in the weeks ahead.

The Facebook angle looks the sexiest of these 2 bits because it involves 2 big personalities and a US social networking giant that is noticeably absent from China. The brief series of posts came last week on Sina's (Nasdaq: SINA) popular Weibo service, often called the Twitter of China. It chronicled a new friendship taking shape between Facebook's high-profile co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Hugo Barra, who recently left a top position at Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) to join Xiaomi.

Barra made global headlines last month when he left his job as a top executive for Google's popular Android smartphone operating system to assume a top-level position at Xiaomi, the fast-rising smartphone maker that aspires to become the Chinese equivalent of Apple. (Nasdaq: AAPL)  Most industry watchers presume that one of Barra's major tasks will be helping Xioami to globalize its business, following the strong success of its smartphones in China.

Meanwhile, Facebook fans will know that Zuckerberg has also said several times that China is an important part of his company's global strategy, even though Facebook is currently blocked in China due to political sensitivities. Zuckerberg has made several trips to China, and Facebook at one point was reportedly in talks for a potential Chinese joint venture with several local partners, including online search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU).

So, does this sudden new friendship between Barra and Zuckerberg mean anything? I suspect the immediate answer is "no", as Zuckerberg almost certainly follows many people on his Facebook account. But this does seem to show that Zuckerberg hasn't taken his eye off China, and perhaps that Barra and Xiaomi could someday become important bridges to finally bringing Facebook to the world's biggest Internet market.