Xi Jinping meets Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook amid China expansion plans

BEIJING: In one of the first public appearances of Chinese President since his re-election as the Communist Party's general secretary, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook met Xi Jinping in Beijing, a media report said on Tuesday.

The meeting took place on Monday during a reception by Xi Jinping for advisers, including two technology sector magnates, from Tsinghua University in Beijing, Efe news agency cited state television channel CCTV as saying.

Other prominent personalities, including Jack Ma (Alibaba), Pony Ma (Tencent), Robin Li (Baidu) and Elon Musk (Tesla) were also a part of the body of advisers.

The visit of the two executives, who visit China frequently, comes a few days before Apple's latest smartphone model iPhone X's launch on November 3, with the hope that the product revives sales of Apple products in the huge Chinese market.

According to market research firm Canalys, iPhone sales in China for the third quarter hit 11 million units -- up from 8 million units sold during the third quarter last year -- owing to "pent-up demand of iPhone upgraders". 

Facebook has been blocked in China since 2009, although there are rumours that the communist regime could end its censure of the social network owing to Zuckerberg's frequent contact with the leaders of the Asian country.

Media reports said recently that Facebook is on a hunt for an office space in Shanghai that it would use to make hardware.

In 2015, Facebook obtained a license to open an office in Beijing but the permit lasted only three months and it could not establish a space in that time.

Oculus, the virtual reality company Facebook bought three years ago, already has an office in Shanghai.

At the moment, Facebook uses third parties and its own employees to sell ads in China.

China is a large market for Facebook because it has the world's largest population of online users.