Some of Hollywood’s top agents, executives, and power brokers met with China’s next wave of film and television moguls. It was an interesting exchange of information, where the dean of U.C.L.A.’s film school, Robert Rosen, rubbed shoulders with Jiao Hongfen, Vice Chairman of the China Film Group Corporation. The Chinese executives (all in their 20s and 30s) were young compared to their US counterparts and represented the latest generation of Chinese power players. They were selected by China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. Don’t underestimate the power of these young executives – one of them, operating a Chinese movie channel, has 800 million viewers, a number that US channels such as HBO can only dream of.

The program included an appearance by Ron Meyer, president of the Universal Studios Group, who gave pointers on how to run a movie studio. Harry E. Sloan, chief executive of MGM, explained to the attendees where his own perennially reorganized studio “stands today.” Dan Glickman told the audience about the purpose of the Motion Picture Association of America.

The movie agent world was explained by Mike Simpson, of William Morris, while Mark Gill, a producer, explained the dark arts of independent film.

The most interesting session though was the one of Gareth Wigan, a former vice chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment. He said that he and his fellow executives have often played the ugly American in dealing with foreigners. “Hollywood has not earned a good reputation in its adventures with other countries,” said Mr. Wigan.

Chinese films are gaining global popularity, despite the rejection by the average American viewer of subtitles (a given in many European countries). The information exchange between the Chinese and US media moguls combined with the nomination of Chinese movies for the Oscars year after year, show that the Chinese movie industry is worth watching – especially since this new generation of movie makers and shakers (dubbed the 6^th generation) are trendsetters with a passion who will quite likely write movie history.

Internet users in China can now join Facebook, the popular American social networking site, as of Friday last week. Facebook has been preparing to enter the Chinese market for some time now and seems set to tackle local competition in a bid to capture a share of China’s enormous online community. Local counterparts include Xiaonei.com, Zhansou.com and 360Quan.com, a teen social network site owned by Koolanoo Group. Myspace, which has been operating in China since 2007, is also likely to put up a fight to continue building up its new local following.

The new Facebook website appears in a simplified version of Chinese, which is used on Mainland China. Facebook also launched two other new sites, one in Russian and one in traditional Chinese. However, Facebook is not alone in joining in the fight to capture a share of the largest online community in the world; Tencent, the Chinese instant messaging company, has also entered the arena. There is some speculation as to whether Facebook will succeed in competing against the, already well-established social networking sites in China.