Apple CEO Tim Cook has never been secretive about his plans of focusing on the Chinese technology market as a new source of growth. As a clear show of support, he recently joined Weibo, a social networking site dubbed as China's own version of Twitter.

Cook immediately posted a message on Monday that read, "Hello, China! Happy to be back in Beijing, announcing innovative new environmental programs."

ZDNet reported that Cook's recently registered Weibo account already attracted more than 300,000 followers in just a span of three hours. His greeting message was forwarded more than 26,000 times and garnered upwards of 34,000 comments.

Apple announced on Monday that the company will launch new ways of achieving clean energy and implementing environmental protection initiatives in the Asian nation.

Cook reportedly visited the Chinese capital to seal a deal with World Wildlife Fund in his attempt to manage as many as 1 million acres of forests across the nation. The Cupertino-based tech giant reportedly intends to fund the project, which will run for five years, to plant trees and make paper by using lesser resources such as land and water.

Mashable revealed that Weibo now has approximately 175.7 million active users per month, which is a little more than half of the 302 million active users on Twitter. Still, Weibo is considered one of China's leading micro-blogging social media services, second only to WeChat. According to Techinasia, WeChat has around 500 million active users.

However, China's crackdown on free speech on the Internet prompted speculation that Cook's messages on Weibo might be limited. He can only post about the latest news on Apple and comment on general social issues or on topics that are clearly not politically motivated. It is glaringly different compared to Twitter, where he openly expresses his thoughts on LGBT laws and rights in the workplace.

Apart from Cook, Weibo has also attracted other famous celebrities from the U.S., such as Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey, Jr. Tom Cruise, Kobe Bryant and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Coincidentally, Cook joined Weibo around the same time BlackBerry CEO John Chen joined Twitter. According to Chen, he only joined the internationally famous micro-blogging website at the instruction of John Legere of T-Mobile. Since joining Twitter, Chen has only reflected on the glory of David Cameron's re-election and posted a Mother's Day greeting.