On November 7, 2014, the state sponsored Global Times published an editorial entitled “China-Japan Easing a Welcome Surprise.” An excerpt:
In September 2012, following prolonged massive protests in front of the Japanese embassy in Beijing, Baidu posted a doodle on its home page showing an island with a PRC flag on it.
At that time, Kaiser Kuo, Baidu’s director of international communications, offered this explanation:
Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi met with Japan's visiting National Security Advisor Shotaro Yachi on Friday and reached a four-point consensus on improving China-Japan relations.These screenshots were taken on November 9, 2014, and show that Baidu has allowed users to establish a “Diaoyu Islands” (钓鱼岛) PostBar (Tieba 贴吧) forum, but bans users from establishing a “Senkaku Islands” (尖阁诸岛) forum.
. . . .
The four-point agreement is a result of China's persistent struggle with Japan without compromise in the past two years. Now that Japan has agreed to sit down with China to talk about crisis management, it is equal to admitting that the disputes over the Diaoyu Islands' sovereignty have become the new reality.
In September 2012, following prolonged massive protests in front of the Japanese embassy in Beijing, Baidu posted a doodle on its home page showing an island with a PRC flag on it.
At that time, Kaiser Kuo, Baidu’s director of international communications, offered this explanation:
The overwhelming majority of Baidu’s employees and users clearly feel very strongly on this topic, but our purpose was to encourage people to be rational in their expressions of patriotism, to renounce violence and other forms of extremism. Planting a digital flag to express your feelings on the matter of the Diaoyu Islands is a much better alternative to throwing rocks or smashing cars.Clicking on the doodle leads to a page entitled "Diaoyu Islands, China's!See: http://blog.feichangdao.com/2012/09/on-anniversary-of-japanese-invasion.html
