Dick Costolo, the chief executive officer of Twitter, arrived at Shanghai Pudong International Airport on Monday to start a three-day visit.
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While on his first trip to China, Costolo will visit local government officials, academics and college students in Shanghai.
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He will also visit Fudan University on Wednesday, on a visit he has defined as personal.
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Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, has frequently visited China and has publicly expressed his company's goal of entering China.
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Unlike at Facebook Inc, whose CEO Mark Zuckerberg is a frequent visitor to China and has openly spoken of his desire to enter China, Twitter's senior management has played down the likelihood of seeking a license to do business there.
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The management team of Twitter has never identified a similar goal. But Costolo's trip is bound to stoke speculation about the company's ambitions in the country.
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A spokesman for Twitter declined to disclose more details about Costolo's talks with Shanghai government officials, but said the CEO aims for a better understanding of Chinese culture and the prosperous Chinese science and technology realms.
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Twitter has denied the possibility of setting up a Chinese office in the near future, as they would then have to abide by Chinese laws.
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Even though the company has not officially entered China, however, Twitter can still earn money from the Chinese market. A large number of Chinese application developers, including Lenovo, now use Twitter's mobile advertisement platform MoPub.