In a rather predictable chain of events, Facebook finds its Chinese office aspirations doused with cold water yet again. China declined to give Facebook space to operate in its business district-but, not before a crazy occurrence which saw the social media network giant gain a license to operate.
Techcrunch reveals that Facebook actually managed to get a license to operate in China, something that no foreign tech company prior has been able to do. However, that was only smoke; the fire died when, a few minutes after the news went viral, the license appeared to have been taken back.
The license came in the form of a filing for a Facebook subsidiary which was filed with the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System. It was going to be neighbors with Alibaba's HQ in Hangzhou, China. However, as the story developed, China's "Great Firewall" has begun blocking news about it. The filing, normally public record, was also seemingly revoked.
Fortune reports that the move was approved by the Zhejiang government. The major problem, however, was that it wasn't made known to the Cyberspace Administration of China, the government body that oversees applications like Facebook's. In a repeat of what was the norm for foreign companies, the license was taken back.
It would have been a subsidiary worth $30 million and would be publicly known as Facebook Technology. It was a startup incubator for tech companies created locally which were looking for investors and funding.
Taking a look back at the revocation, it seems that the Chinese government is either keeping the deal under wraps or is simply not comfortable enough with Facebook operating within Chinese soil. It is for this reason that apps like WeChat and QQ are available to the public so that the extremely-conservative government can keep censoring content to show to the people.
Mark Zuckerberg has been looking at China for a long time. He has invested in learning the local language as well as make a presence there. However, as Facebook tries to re-assess its moves to gain ground, this is still a positive sign that China may indeed be opening just a bit.
