Chinese president opens Facebook page despite ban

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has broken one of his own cardinal rules, by signing up for Facebook.

Xi’s verified Facebook page, “Xi’s US Visit”, has been full of status updates, photos and video as he continues his first official state visit to the US.

Since the page’s first post back in mid-September to drum up interest about the trip, the page has picked up about a million likes, and is even pushing #XiUSAVisit as a trending topic.

Followers of the page can click through pictures of Xi speaking with top US company executives; strolling with US President Obama on White House grounds; and meeting Vice President Joe Biden with his wife, Peng Liyuan.

While world leaders like US president Barack Obama – who is hugely popular with nearly 45 million likes – German counselor, Angela Merkel, and UK Prime Minister David Cameron, are on Facebook, none of them are in charge of countries that have outrightly banned Facebook.

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China’s government sensors – dubbed the Great Firewall – have already blocked the social media network, along with other sites such as Google, and Twitter.

Other foreign news websites and broadcasts are also blacked out quite often and all of this means that no matter how popular Xi gets on Facebook, the 1.3 billion people back in China won’t be able to access his posts. On a more ironic level, photos of Xi meeting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg were also posted to the page.

Chinese government propaganda is not aloof to Western social media, even though it is blocked socially. State media out platforms such as Xinhua news agency and China Daily newspaper frequently post updates on Facebook and Twitter.