China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Baidu Scandal Brings Business Ethics to the Forefront
Chinese search engine Baidu is under scrutiny after the death of a 21-year-old cancer patient. Many netizens blame Baidu for offering advertised space to fraudulent doctors. At the core of the Baidu Scandal lies the question: to what extent is Baidu responsible for the health of Chinese netizens?
China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Starbucks Goes Xinjiang & The Kardashians in China
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Originally published in the Eye on Digital China newsletter on Sunday, October 4, 2026.
In this edition:
- Quick scrolls: A Chinese athlete cheated her way to the Berlin Marathon’s finish
- Zooming in: When Localization Gets Political: Starbucks Goes Xinjiang
- On the Feed: The Kardashians in China
- Phrase of the Week: The 3 souvenirs sold everywhere, but nobody wants them
🗞️ QUICK SCROLLS
🇯🇵 The National Day holiday has begun, but nobody’s going to Japan. Although Japan was the number one outbound destination for Chinese travelers during last year’s October holiday, it has now dropped out of the top ten destinations entirely. According to data from Chinese tour operator Tuniu (途牛), Indonesia, Turkey, and South Korea are among this year’s most-booked overseas destinations.
🚲 Chinese fitness influencer “Abeeeer” was caught cheating during the Berlin Marathon after she posted about running her “personal best.” The sport-blogger (530k+ followers on Xiaohongshu) was photographed riding on the back of a bicycle around the 38-kilometer mark. On Saturday, she publicly apologized and admitted that she had broken the rules and that she was “feeling unwell.”
The sports influencer was caught hitching a ride to the finish line.
🏳️🌈 Japanese volleyball player Rui Takahashi came out as gay on Tuesday, saying he wanted to help others struggling with their sexuality by coming out publicly. On Douyin, many Chinese fans and commenters praised Rui for his bravery.
🤖 Former Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin (胡锡进) published a National Day essay praising the country’s achievements but forgot to delete the AI chatbot’s closing follow-up question (”Would you like me to read through the whole text again and check it for omissions?”). Hu quickly deleted the AI prompt, but “Hu Xijin’s National Day AI ghostwriting fail” had already gone trending.
⚽ Chinese football produced…
China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Quack Like a Goose: Why Beijing Street Vendor “Auntie Goose Legs” Sparked a Nationwide Debate
After the first complaints surfaced, Auntie Goose Legs admitted the truth about her business: she ha been selling duck legs all along.
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Rob
May 4, 2016 at 1:24 am
Baidu has issues; it is absolutely China-biased, and while the advert system may not be as strict, the same procedure would show up in the list of options and alternatives no matter what.
What Wei is not doing is taking responsible for his own short-comings, and what should be at the fore here is the lack of effective researching and critical thinking skills taught to students. I had to institute researching and citation as a course for my freshmen because it did not exist and no one taught it until maybe their 4th year; this is certainly lacking in education.
On top of this, many Chinese medical practices are questionable in general; there are doctors who promote C-sections even knowing that natural birth is preferred and has fewer complications because it is more profitable; other doctors are promoting a pharmacological solution to problems that do not need them because it is more profitable; doctors take bribes to arrange for treatments (a friend who severed his patellar ligament in Beijing had to pay 2000 RMB in gas cards to just to get into a hospital bed, even though he had insurance to cover all the expenses of the surgery and hospital stay). This to me is less an issue of Baidu and more an issue of a profit-driven, eminently corrupt, and generally ignorant medical system (and I say this as someone with a medical background who has had to use the system in Beijing both for myself and with friends).
Wei was foolish; where was his due diligence? Yes, I get that he was dying and looking for solutions, but how may solutions did he look for? Did he check this procedure with other doctors at other hospitals? Or, like many of my students, did he simply jump on the first answer he found and followed it through to its natural result?
If anything, this shows shortcomings in both medicine and education. Let’s stop pointing the finger at Baidu (it’s a shitty carpenter who blames his tools) and start pointing the finger where it belongs.