Facebook, which made the announcement at Social Media Week in Hong Kong, is clearly hoping to keep the move under the radar. It already has some 3 million users here.

Blake Chandlee, Vice President and Commercial Director, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Emerging Markets told a small group of local media, “We are excited about being a big part of the Asian market, in general.”

When asked about the company’s China strategy, Chandlee said “there are a lot of reason I do and don’t want to talk about China.”

The Chinese government currently blocks Facebook on the mainland.

(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, FILE)

Experts say after what happened with Google in 2010, Facebook has been staying away from both Hong Kong and China. Now, it is trying to very quietly set up an official presence in Hong Kong.

According to Charles Mok, Chairman of Internet Society Hong Kong, “the main reason why Facebook set up an office [here] is for business reasons and be where the advertising revenues are, but it is choosing to do it in a low-profiled way to minimize any political overtones or unnecessary speculations.”

This may also explain why Chandlee downplayed Mark Zuckerberg’s visit to Beijing last year as a ”vacation” with his Chinese girlfriend Priscilla Chan,  explaining “Mark is learning Mandarin.”

During the trip Zuckerberg met with the head of Baidu, China’s largest search engine.

Chandlee’s brief comments on Facebook’s plans for Asia provide some other insights into the company’s strategy for the region. “We are north of 500 million users and we are growing… and a lot of that is in Asia.”

Facebook opened it’s first Asian sales office in Singapore last summer.

When asked about the future, Chandlee said simply “mobile is the future of our business, especially in Latin America and Asia.”

A clear message, if anyone is listening.

The title itself, excerpted in The Wall Street Journal “Why Chinese Mom’s are Superior“ is enough to outrage even the most mild mannered soccer Mom, but the truth is, this debate gets to the root of the larger national conversation about China’s growing dominance on the world stage and in the classroom.

It is not a coincidence the fury comes as President Barack Obama is “looking to assure Americans that they should not fear China’s economic rise” following Chinese President Hu Jintao’s recent high-profile visit.

Chua has clearly hit a nerve by claiming her tough, immigrant “Chinese” style of parenting — no play dates, TV, computer games and to be “the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama” — yields results Western parents covet but are too “weak-willed” or “conflicted” to enforce.

“Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best,” she claims.

Envy, one of the seven deadly sins, is especially dangerous when it relates to one’s children. Claiming to be a better, more determined parent in this age of Mommy wars is just asking for a fight, which is exactly what the author now has on her hands.

Her extreme, hard knocks, black and white approach to parenting, however, lacks two critical components: balance and some common sense.

The real issue isn’t cultural or even Chinese, it’s personal and, ironically, hyper American. After all, this Tiger Mom is a Chinese-American mother recounting her experience raising two daughters, Sophia and Louisa, in New Haven not Shanghai. She is more outlier, than mainlander, though her thesis implies otherwise.

Her attitude, fueled by a certain amount of egotism, reflects those of over demanding, American parents who dedicate large amounts of time, money and energy to their children’s future success, meticulously plotting their path from private nursery school to the Ivy Leagues.

In the end, Chua loses sight of the fact that good parenting is based on a certain amount of strictness, or structure, coupled with individualism. That kind of balanced view is what is missing from her book and perhaps this greater discussion surrounding what it means to be successful in the first place.

When Chua argues “tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America” she is right on both counts.

The problem is that by emphasizing rote repetition and memorization over individual creative thinking, choice and expression, she may well be raising high achievers but not, necessarily, leaders or innovators who can “think outside the box.”

And in that sense, Chua’s children may well inherit some similar challenges many Chinese students now face competing in the global market.

She argues her two young daughters, Sophia and Louisa, will have the discipline necessary to achieve their goals, having spent hours diligently playing the piano and violin, without the frivolous distractions of, say, summer camp and school plays.

But you have to wonder, what are the chances there would even be a Microsoft or Facebook had Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg not been able to play on their computers, fail on their own terms, (that is, drop out of Harvard) or generally choose their own extracurricular activities.

I think we all know the answer.