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"If Apple can sell iPhones in China and Tesla can sell cars in China, why can't Meta sell devices in China?"

This is a question from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is now putting this statement into practice.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Profile

According to The Wall Street Journal, Meta is in talks with Tencent in an attempt to introduce Meta's VR headset into this huge new market in China.

The Governor of Chang'an Street noticed that this CEO, who is seeking to reopen the door to the Chinese market, is also the mastermind behind the deliberate step by step decision to put TikTok on the "guillotine" for comprehensive ban. All of these operations are just his most basic trait as a shrewd businessman - not seeking profit.

According to a report, an insider revealed that Zuckerberg raised the above-mentioned issue to the staff of Meta's VR headset at the end of 2021, which became a new starting point for Meta's attempt to restart its business in China by selling devices.

It is reported that the production department of VR headsets, Reality Labs, had an operating loss of up to $4 billion in the first three months of this year.

However, the road to restart seems to be not smooth. According to insiders, Meta has communicated with multiple Chinese technology companies, but this effort faces significant challenges, largely due to Zuckerberg being unfriendly to China.

According to the report, Zuckerberg accused China of stealing American technology and attacking TikTok, exacerbating its negative image in China, which will inevitably increase uncertainty for cooperation.

In sharp contrast to Meta's bumpy negotiation process, it was the fruitful results achieved by American companies such as Apple and Tesla after their visits to China.

Earlier this year, Apple CEO Cook and Tesla CEO Musk visited China respectively and met with senior Chinese officials. During a meeting with Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, Musk emphasized that the interests of the United States and China are closely intertwined like a conjoined baby, and Tesla opposes "decoupling and chain breaking" and is willing to continue expanding its business in China.

Within 48 hours of his visit to China, Tesla's stock price surged and its market value surged overnight by over 25 billion US dollars.

On May 30, 2023, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk in Beijing. Faced with these, I don't know how Zuckerberg would feel, after all, his previous actions were like lifting a stone and hitting his own foot.

The Governor of Chang'an Street noticed that Zuckerberg had a good image in China before. From 2012 to 2016, he visited Tsinghua University multiple times in China, gave speeches in Chinese, and had discussions with political and business figures, establishing a persona of loving Chinese culture.

As more and more American technology companies enter the Chinese market, Facebook has always been blocked. In addition, TikTok, which is rapidly rising overseas, threatens the dominant position of the social media kingdom founded by Zuckerberg. He began to tear off his mask and take off his disguise.

In October 2019, Zuckerberg delivered a speech at Georgetown University, in which he made several name calling attacks on TikTok, pointing out that the rise of Chinese Internet enterprises is a threat to the dominance of American values and technology.

A more dramatic scene occurred in July 2020.

At that time, the CEOs of the four major US technology giants GAFA - Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon - attended a US conference hearing through remote video conferencing. When asked by lawmakers whether they believed the Chinese government was stealing US technology, Apple CEO Cook bluntly stated, "From the first-hand information I have, Apple has not experienced such incidents." Both Google and Amazon CEOs have stated that there is no evidence to prove that China is involved in technology theft.

Only Zuckerberg claimed that he had "sufficient evidence to prove that China had stolen technology from American companies.".

CEOs of the four major technology giants in the United States simultaneously face congressional inquiries

In August of the same year, just as then US President Trump attempted to "block" TikTok, American media exposed that Zuckerberg had long been exaggerating the threat TikTok posed to the United States in private meetings with White House officials and lawmakers. He also proposed to Trump that the threat of the rise of Chinese Internet companies should be a more noteworthy issue than the control of Facebook monopoly, which triggered the Trump government's concern about TikTok.

At the same time, Zuckerberg also led Facebook to establish a promotional organization called "American Influence", which began advertising and praising the contributions of American technology companies to America's economic strength, national security, and cultural influence.

It can be said that the current contradictory and awkward situation is not unfamiliar to Zuckerberg.

According to a previous report by The Washington Post, Zuckerberg has been inciting anti China sentiment in American politics in 2022, hoping to use American nationalism to suppress his competitor TikTok. However, when developing related businesses, the company cannot do without Chinese factories producing almost all related electronic products for him. Even company executives feel that such operations are quite hypocritical.

What is even more ridiculous is that Zuckerberg and company executives once thought about shifting production lines, but whether it is Taiwan, China, or alternatives such as Vietnam and India, there is no relatively complete supply chain of smart electronic devices like mainland China. So that some executives in the end admitted that it was not feasible.

Nowadays, "China stealing technology" is still a commonly used clich é by the United States, and the "encirclement" established against China under the pretext of "national security" is gradually tightening. However, American companies on the other side are finding it increasingly difficult to abandon the vast Chinese market.

An analysis suggests that even if Meta successfully collaborates with Chinese companies, the challenges it faces from competitors should not be underestimated.

According to a group of data released by Counterpoint, the research company, TikTok's parent company, the ByteDance VR device Pico, has been sold in Asia and Europe. Last year, it led the market with 43% of shipments. Meanwhile, Apple's AR earphone Vision Pro was also launched in June. On the other hand, Meta's user acceptance of its devices has been lukewarm, and Meta has even lowered prices multiple times due to this, but with little effect.

Now, Zuckerberg is seeking more effective solutions in China, and it is likely that he was the one who obstructed him.