With Google and Twitter still blocked in China, executives woo Beijing

[Commentary] China’s Great Firewall is still blocking the services of Facebook, Google and Twitter, but that hasn't stopped top brass from all three Silicon Valley firms from visiting Beijing in a span of less than 10 days, perhaps hoping to boost their business prospects on the mainland. Following in the footsteps of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg -- who gave a much-discussed speech in Chinese late in Oct at Tsinghua University -- senior executives from Google and Twitter made appearances in Beijing on Nov 2, attending a technology conference.

“In fact, we do hope to provide service in China, and we continue to communicate with the Chinese government. This is also why I’m here this week,” said Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet/Google. He added that the company has “always been in touch with the Chinese government" and that Chinese officials had visited Google offices in California in the past. When Google decided to abandon the Chinese search market because of censorship and hacking concerns and move its servers to Hong Kong in 2010, it kept about 500 employees on the mainland who are mainly responsible for selling Google’s ad services to Chinese companies looking to reach consumers overseas.