"Whoever was trying to do this thought LinkedIn would be a good way to get into China," said Bill Bishop, an independent analyst who watches the China IT market. But the government was quick to catch on and blocked the site, he added.

The blocking of LinkedIn could follow the path of other U.S.-based sites that have faced troubles with China's Internet censors. In 2009, following ethnic riots in China's western Xinjiang region, both Facebook and Twitter were blocked. The Chinese government also decided to shut down the Internet in the region for several months.

The Chinese government has "been explicit in that they view foreign social networking sites as potential tools for subversion," Bishop said. "It's a surprise LinkedIn wasn't blocked earlier."

In deciding to block both Facebook and Twitter, the Chinese government also made way for China's own social networking sites to fill in the void and become popular. The country now has several Twitter and Facebook clones. The country itself has the world's largest Internet population at 457 million users.