Cook, Zuckerberg meet Xi at Tsinghua University

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday at an annual gathering of advisers to Beijing’s Tsinghua University business school. Xi was speaking to business leaders and officials at the meeting, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) reported. Cook and Zuckerberg are on the advisory board of the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management. According to Reuters, the meeting comes at a particularly key time for Apple as it prepares to launch its much-anticipated iPhone X on Friday, amid hopes the anniversary smartphone can revive the firm’s sales in the world’s number two economy. Facebook’s Zuckerberg has also been very active in China, eager to get his popular social network unblocked in the world’s most populous nation, where it has been banned since 2009 and held behind the country’s so-called Great Firewall. Facebook confirmed Zuckerberg was in Beijng, but declined to comment on details of his visit.