Corporate China | Weibo: Zuckerberg charms China at Tsinghua, Xiaomi events

Chinese tech executives have been buzzing for much of the past week over Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) founder Mark Zuckerberg, who was working hard to charm many of China's high-tech elite on a semi-official visit to Beijing. Zuckerberg was in town to attend an event at the prestigious Tsinghua University, often called the MIT of China. But he also found time to visit smartphone sensation Xiaomi, where he received abundant praise from company officials led by the increasingly influential and high-profile CEO Lei Jun.

Separately, two homegrown Chinese tech legends also received widespread praise and admiration, as Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) veteran Chen Tong and Zhang Xiangdong, president of recently listed mobile game maker Sungy Mobile (Nasdaq: GOMO), both announced they would leave their longtime employers. The departures of this pair also drew a certain degree of reflection and nostalgia, as many noted the passing of the Internet from an earlier generation of technology enthusiasts to a new, younger group of more marketing-savvy, seasoned business people.

Such change is a constant theme on China's Internet, and Facebook's youthful Mark Zuckerberg was certainly hoping to tap into such sentiment on his widely reported trip to China. Facebook has been blocked in the country since 2009 due to its inclusion of sensitive user-generated content that is not subject to Beijing's strict censorship rules. But Zuckerberg has made no secret of his desire to enter the market, and regularly visits China to test the political winds.