• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 11, 2015

Despite Facebook’s best efforts, Chinese officials have no plans to drop their ban on the social giant.

Along with Twitter, Instagram and other foreign Web sites, Lu Wei, head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, said this week that it remains in the country’s best interest to keep Facebook out.

“I … may choose who comes into my house,” Wei told reporters at a briefing on the country’s upcoming World Internet Conference. “They can come if they are friends.”

In other words, Wei and his fellow apparatchiks still don’t consider Mark Zuckerberg a “friend,” despite the CEO’s vigorous efforts to win them over.

Earlier this year, Facebook pursued an alliance with Xiaomi. The social giant was ready to participate in the Chinese hardware company’s recent fund-raising round, but reportedly failed to agree on investment terms.

Late last year, Zuckerberg made headlines after showing off his fluent Mandarin during a question-and-answer session at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Banned in China since 2009, Facebook has pursued international growth by other means. For example, the social giant -- which has historically pioneered connectivity strategies — such as its Internet.org initiative in 2013 -- recently made strides in targeting mobile consumers in developing nations through a new, experimental ad strategy.

Such efforts are increasingly critical to Facebook’s bottom line. Indeed, a majority (51%) of Facebook’s ad revenue now comes from foreign markets, Carolyn Everson, vice president, global marketing solutions at Facebook, recently told Reuters.

Despite concerns of a slowing economy, China’s growing middle-class is enough to make any company salivate. In 2013 alone, Chinese e-commerce amounted to $865 billion dollars, according to McKinsey & Co.