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back to article Baidu's patriotic doodle ruffles Japanese feathers

Chinese search giant Baidu is in fire-fighting mode after releasing an ill-advised doodle on its homepage on Tuesday depicting the disputed Diaoyu Islands – a move which could harm its international operations. September 18 was the anniversary of the Mukden, or Manchurian, Incident of 1931 which led to the Japanese invasion of …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    all this will bite China in the ass

    eventually, as business starts moving elsewhere, I'm sure the latest debacle has sent a panic alert to businesses around the world and sent them into a "thinking" mode.

    ...

    but then, what happens when "all" those Chinese jobs go elsewhere? Will it not push China to give one billion (and counting) folks home something else to think about, other than "we're screwed so let's burn the house of the Party"? Something to be proud of? Like, say, invading Taiwan, or other country in the region. Desperate times call for desperate measures, particularly when your cushy party trough is at stake.

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  2. Ken Hagan Gold badge
    Joke

    Sense of humour bypass

    Perhaps Baidu need to borrow some of El Reg's icons.

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  3. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    "Ill advised", or as commanded by the government?

    Now "ill advised" - somewhat - would be if China claimed the Falklands as well. But maybe I shouldn't give them ideas.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When the shit hits the fan at home ...

    ... fan the flames of nationalism over a disputed island in the middle of nowhere.

    Works every time (they hope)

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  5. solidsoup
    Devil

    China jumped the shark.

    China is at least a decade away from being able to utilize the energy resources around those islands or even confront Japan militarily, given the treaty Japan has with US. They've started the whole row prematurely, so I wonder what else is at play. Could it be that their growth numbers are not as great as they pretend and the juggernaut of the Chinese economy has actually slowed down tremendously after the 2008 crisis, fake number put out by PRC notwithstanding? Now you have real estate bubble, demographic crisis, and a slowdown in investment all hitting China at once in the coming 2-3 years.

    It seems that people who have written US and Europe off in favor of the rising China have also jumped the shark. I, for one, will be only too happy for them to be proven conclusively wrong.

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  6. Erik Pedersen
    Black Helicopters

    Just a thought for disputed territories....

    Why not treat disputed lands as a sort of international resource? Either Japan or China could cede the islands to the other party, but with a treaty that provides for international access. The Svalbard islands offer a useful example of how this might work. While the islands are technically governed by Norwegian law, Norway places no restrictions on who can go there.

    Wikipedia reports: "Norway grants permission for any nation to conduct research on Svalbard, resulting in the Polish Polar Station and the Chinese Arctic Yellow River Station, plus Russian facilities in Barentsburg. The University Centre in Svalbard in Longyearbyen offers undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate courses to 350 students...with Norwegian and international students equally represented." The archipelago is also home to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault,a priceless genetics resource of world significance.

    Something like this sounds a whole lot more pleasant than sabre-rattling and ominous predictions of unnecessary regional wars.

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