It’s funded by the Chinese government. Its CEO is Deng Yaping, former world ping-pong champion. Kai-Fu Lee, former president of Google China, was banned from Weibo for criticizing it. Chinese netizens couldn’t help but ask: “Is all the drama a publicity stunt?”

After a few keyword searches, Baidu Map tells you what China is covered with.

Baidu released a “2012 end of the world” themed campaign for the coming World Earth Day on April 22. Their pitch is “2012 is not scary. What’s scary is that no one saves the planet.”

Lei Feng, a legendary PLA soldier in the 50s, was a nation-wide role model of social morality and serving the people. When media online and offline in China start to spin the “Learn from comrade Lei Feng” propaganda all over again in full gear. Baidu already has Lei Feng’s name all over its products.

This Valentine’s Day, everyone is able to to log on to Baidu’s Valentine’s Map, drop a pin to mark their love, shout out their love manifesto, and of course, let the world know their relationship status.

In order to monetize services and increase user stickiness, Baidu, Sina Weibo (microblog) and Renren (SNS) all jumped into the online recruiting and job searching market in China. Social capital now has the potential to turn into real capital.

Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, is under fire for copyright violation. The call for copyright protection received almost universal support from netizens. Yet, when the government cracked down P2P websites like BT China and VeryCD, Chinese netizens responded with anger and criticism. In the case of Baidu, they seem to turn pro-copyright overnight.

Baidu 3D map is simply amazing, much better than Google map in terms of aesthetics at least. It is map of China + pixel art + 3D. The amazing details in the 3D map make it so fun and easy to navigate.

Check out what are the latest online buzz and the hottest search topics on Baidu by 2/22/2011- most searched topics, popular group buying sites, most interested digital devices and luxury brands.