When British Prime Minister David Cameron returns home from his carefully choreographed trip to China, he will be surprised by the dozens of business contracts that will start to flow in, as well as by endless questions from thousands of his new Chinese friends on social media.

I have long observed foreign politicians trying to engage with Chinese fans, sometimes in the millions, through social media. Their teams waste no time uploading their schedules, speeches and short ideas in English, French or other languages.

However, these messages usually fail to reach the Chinese public, mainly because they are not written in Chinese.