BuzzFeed, which I must confess I have not previously paid attention to, has produced a couple of fantastic reports on Chinese repression in Xinjiang. The two reports are here and here.
What is even more interesting than these reports if you are concerned about research methodologies is the nuts and bolts of how BuzzFeed used the efforts of China’s leading search engine, Baidu, to hide what is going on to instead expose what is going on.
That fascinating story is here. It is to do with how the airbrushing of satellite maps by Baidu actually led researchers to the location of hundreds of new internment and forced labour camps.
Baidu is often described as the Google of China. This is a near-literal comparison because most of what Baidu does it ripped off straight from Google, even down to ‘moonshot’ investments like self-driving cars. Baidu has never, to my knowledge, produced meaningful innovation, unlike firms such as Tencent and Bytedance, the Tik Tok creator.
If you own Baidu stock (BIDU), I would get rid of it. The rising Economic Social and Governance (ESG) movement that seeks to promote more ethical investing is presented with a very juicy target here. Plus, Baidu doesn’t seem to be able to innovate anyway, so you won’t even get rich from supporting the concealment of genocide.