In many ways, the gaming industry and gaming culture are far more advanced in the east than the west. And in the same way that social gaming attracted gamers and non-gamers alike in the United States, it has also captivated the greater population of China as well. With an all ready fervent populace playing MMOs, it is not surprising that even more would be attracted by the simple and casual games found within social networks.

A recent article in Gamasutra notes Facebook and Xiaonei have been operating in China for a while now. However, it took quite a while to translate Facebook into Chinese, and Xiaonei hasn’t had the platform to properly support social gaming until recently. As such, the social gaming space was left a vacuum until it was filled by Kaixin001 in April of 2008.

Sure enough, Kaixin001 began to skyrocket in popularity as China’s billions of citizens gravitated to this new form of social, cheap, and entertaining media. The growth was so substantial that the majority of China’s game studios and networks began to implement social capabilities into their products.

The combination of games and social networks is further highlighted by the growth 51.com – which has also become a social network that supports gaming. Unfortunately, you might need to learn some Chinese in order to understand it.

The real question now is to whether or not the rise in social gaming will last in China. Based on the relatively low cost of doing business in this space and social gaming’s tremendous growth, things are looking good.