Asia Tech Wire (May 10) -- Baidu's vice president of public relations, Qu Jing, who sparked a huge controversy on China's social media platforms, left the company on Thursday.
Over the past few days, Qu Jing has put herself and Baidu in the middle of a public outcry over controversial comments she made in short videos she posted on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.
These videos cover topics such as "300 letters of complaint are scattered all over the workplace", "public relations personnel have no vacations in Spring Festival and weekends", and "who earns more and who pays bills".
Due to the spicy and sharp points Qu presented in these videos, they attracted a lot of attention and sparked great controversy soon after their release.
In a statement released early Thursday morning, Qu clarified, "Before releasing the short videos, I did not consult the company in advance, which does not conform to the relevant process and does not represent the company's position."
"Many inappropriate and uncomfortable points in the videos caused external misunderstanding of the company's values and corporate culture, which caused serious harm, and I also sincerely apologize here," Qu said.
She added, "The original intention of posting the short videos was to do a good job, but the heart was too eager and the method was inappropriate, which brought discomfort and disturbance to everyone, and I sincerely accept all kinds of criticism."
In addition to the controversial videos on Douyin, Qu also raised more questions over a video with the China Morning Post (SCMP), a media outlet owned by Alibaba founder Jack Ma.
Rumor has it that Qu whipped a paper figure with "scmp" written on it with a data cable in her office earlier this year after the SCMP published a negative story about Baidu.
Qu graduated from China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) and was a reporter for Xinhua News Agency, China's state-run media outlet.
In 2015, Qu joined Huawei as the head of Huawei's China Media Affairs Department, responsible for the company's domestic media affairs, external communication and crisis communication.
And in 2021, Qu joined Baidu as vice president (VP) in charge of the company's public communications department.
There were rumors on Wednesday that Baidu had fired Qu. However, she responded that day by saying, "I'm at work."
Late Thursday, Asia Tech Wire has learned that Qu has officially left Baidu.
According to Tencent News, Baidu founder Robin Li held a small staff communication meeting with human resources head Shanshan Cui on Thursday afternoon to comment on Qu's incident.
Li recognized Baidu's outstanding employees on the spot and emotionally said, "You are the ones who represent Baidu, you are the ones who represent the truest Baidu, you are the truest representatives of Baidu."
