Facebook sets up China subsidiary

Beijing: Facebook has opened a subsidiary in mainland China, records show, a long-awaited step for the social networking giant and its Mandarin-speaking founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The company, called Lianshu Science & Technology (Hangzhou), was established on July 18 with $30 million of registered capital, according to China's corporate record database.

Lianshu literally means "face" and "book". Facebook's Hong Kong branch holds all of its shares.

Zhang Jinghai is named as the new company's legal representative, while David Kling and Susan Taylor are listed as directors.

Kling is a Facebook vice president, while Taylor is the internet giant's chief accountant, according to their LinkedIn profiles.

Zhang holds the same role at the company behind Facebook's sneaky launch last year of a photo-sharing app for China called Colourful Balloons, which recreated Facebook's Moments app.

The app never took off, marking another setback in China for Facebook. It has strived to breach the "Great Firewall" — which tightly controls China's internet content — ever since its flagship social media platform was banned by Beijing in 2009.

Facebook chief executive and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has made several high-profile visits to China, once going as far as taking a photogenic jog through central Beijing while the city choked on smog.