Beijing uses banned social media to promote Xi's U.S. visit

Chinese President Xi Jinping has broken his own rules ... by signing up for Facebook!

His verified Facebook page, "Xi's US Visit," has been full of status updates, photos and videos during his first official state visit. Since its first post to drum up interest about the trip in mid-September, the page has picked up about a million "likes".

Chinese President Xi Jinping

Followers can click through pictures of Xi speaking with top U.S. company executives; strolling with President Obama on White House grounds; and meeting Vice President Joe Biden with his wife, Peng Liyuan. They can watch videos about the state dinner menu and listen to American high school students sing a Chinese tune. There are even infographics with facts about the history of U.S.-China relations.

President Xi's verified Facebook page, "Xi's US Visit"

Sure, lots of world leaders are on Facebook -- Obama is hugely popular with nearly 45 million likes, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has 1.4 million and UK Prime Minister David Cameron has about 750,000.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron and the President of the United States, Barack Obama, each with 750,000 and 45 million Facebook ‘likes’ respectively

But they aren't in charge of countries that have banned Facebook outright.

China's government censors - dubbed the Great Firewall - have blocked the social media network, along with other sites such as Google and Twitter. That means no matter how popular Xi gets on Facebook, the 1.3 billion folks back home won't be able to access his posts. Even more ironic: Photos of Xi meeting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg were also posted to the page.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (facing) speaks to Chinese President Xi Jinping (centre) as China's internet tsar Lu Wei looks on

For Xi, however, there is one final social media frontier -- his Facebook page doesn't feature a single selfie!

(All images - credit: Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licence)