.

China’s Twitter, Sina Weibo, is filling up with pictures of Tim Cook visiting the Beijing Apple Store this morning.

It is not clear if this is his first trip to China as CEO, but Cook has been to China many times in the past as COO and was last seen negotiating China Mobile’s contract in mid-June at the behest of former CEO Steve Jobs who, according to his biography, never visited the country.

Cook, in response to the New York Times’ iEconomy stories, told Apple employees in a company-wide email that Apple cared about “every worker in its supply chain.” There is no shortage of happenings in China currently that could be bringing Cook over, including the Proview ‘iPad’ name fight, strikes at Foxconn’s new iPhone plant, and negotiations with the biggest carrier in the world China Mobile.  Apple got regulatory approval for the iPad in China this week.

Sina.com suggests it is the carriers who he’s in town for.

Update: the WSJ reports that Tim Cook was in town to meet government officials.

Interestingly the Journal notes that Tim Cook is called ‘Captain Cook’ in China.

Cook, who serves on the board of Nike, is wearing a Nike LiveStrong jacket in the images above.

More pictures, including a hotel spotting, are below:

Thanks MacX!

  • Apple CEO Tim Cook announces dividend and share repurchase program (9to5mac.com)
  • Tim Cook talks worker safety (9to5mac.com)
  • Tim Cook unloads $11 million in AAPL stock (9to5mac.com)
  • Apple posts audio of Tim Cook presentation from Goldman Sachs Conference (9to5mac.com)
  • Tim Cook talks Facebook at Apple shareholders meeting (9to5mac.com)
  • Tim Cook: Post-PC devices made up 76 percent of our revenues (9to5mac.com)
  • Path co-founder Dave Morin got spanked by Tim Cook for uploading iPhone users’ addressbooks (9to5mac.com)
  • Tim cook talks Mountain Lion (9to5mac.com)
  • Tim Cook calls new Retail SVP John Browett ‘the best by far’ (9to5mac.com)
  • Tim Cook convinces AT&T to unlock customer’s iPhone (9to5mac.com)