Facing the Facebook facts

At a recent conference at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, a Chinese scholar presented a comparison between the Facebook pages of US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping, making the point that while the former was argumentative in his style, covering a range of domestic issues, the Chinese leader's focus was on harmony and China's peaceful policy. The scholar had no comment on a query as to why President Xi used Facebook, to which Chinese citizens are denied access. The scholar also disclosed that President Xi does not have a page on the Chinese equivalent of Facebook, Weibo, which is hugely popular in that country.