Mark Zuckerberg gives 20-minute speech in Chinese

While Zuckerberg has been on the board of Tsinghua’s School of Economics and Management since a year ago, Facebook is still blocked in China.

Zuckerberg admitted to students at Tsinghua University in Beijing that it was “my first ever speech in Chinese”, as he talked about what drove him to run Facebook through its most challenging times, said Forbes.

Addressing the students in Mandarin, Zuckerberg, 31, discussed the now-familiar story of how he originally founded his company during his time studying at Harvard University.

Mark Zuckerberg has delivered a 20 minute speech in Mandarin as part of a China charm offensive.

Zuckerberg also tipped his hat towards “great” Chinese companies such as Alibaba and Xiaomi, whom he believes also share a strong sense of mission.

Right after his first formal speech at Tsinghua on Saturday, Zuckerberg posted a video of his 20-minute long speech on Facebook, accompanied by a post detailing his experience.

However, Facebook remains desperate to gain access to the world’s highest populated country, which has had a drastic increase in internet users despite China’s widespread censorship policy.

A link to Zuckerberg’s speech was shared on Sina Weibo, a homegrown social network popular in China, and users’ reactions were mixed.

Forbes said Zuckerberg was learning Mandarin so he could better communicate with his wife’s paternal grandmother, but added that his efforts could help in his effort break into the Chinese market. Many expressed admiration for his attempts to learn Mandarin, but not all thought his skills were quite so impressive.

During his speech, he began with the brief history of Facebook and its goal as a website. “Even if we didn’t know all the answers, we could continue helping and connecting people”, he urged.