The article mischaracterises the ad by quite a bit. According to youtube commentators, it is a frontal assault on Google and that search engines difficulty in parsing Chinese -- a language which uses no 'white space' between letters. (And just looking at the commerical confirms this, I think!)Using this particular ad as hook on which to muse about Chinese protectionism is quite a bit off base. More like free market competition red in tooth and claw.

As to the subtext, it is certainly nationalist and even racialist. The 'Westerner' is dressed in (bad) nineteenth century costume -- no doubt recalling an era when Chinese were put upon by the Western powers, events still etched in the Chinese conscious. That the Chinese protagonist prevents a marriage between a fair Chinese maiden and a plodding caucasian speaks for itself.

Worse, the guai lo ends up spraying out red liquid (blood presumably) , collapsing, and on the ground twitching at the end. While the whole 'imagine if this was done to [insert group X here] ' is very stale, in this case it takes little imagination to foresee the outcry if roles were reversed.

I personally don't have a problem with this type of stuff, but it is obtuse for 'analysts' and scholars to deny the nationalism, ethnocentrism, and racialism present.

In addition, the white guy speaks Chinese with an almost exaggerated foreign accent. In my line of work, I am surrounded by native English speakers (mostly white Americans) who can speak and understand Chinese - none of them sound as ridiculous as the voice in the commercial. In fact, Chris Tucker in the Rush Hour outtakes might have sounded better.

Mitchell Young nails the ad nearly perfectly. It is clearly racist and xenophobic. The foreigner with his broken Chinese has the audacity to challenge the Chinese "hero" when he doesn't have the ability to engage in an argument with anything but the phrase "I know." The wedding type setting, with the 19th century dress are clearly designed to stir up nationalism in its viewer.

I don't know how significant it is that the bride is wearing white rather than red, since it seems common enough for Chinese brides to wear western style wedding gowns today, but it may be worth noting.

The message of the ad is a (possibly) legitimate claim that Baidu's search engine has the best technology for identifying individual characters or compound words (think basketball versus the individual concepts of basket and ball) depending on the context of the search. I wouldn't know enough about the merits; I read very few Chinese websites and don't usually search in Chinese. Regardless, the ad is still clearly trying to sell the viewer on supporting Chinese-owned businesses for the main reason that the foreign-owned businesses are owned by, well, foreigners.

The Baidu ad seems to be a parody of early Chow Sing-Chi comedies(aka Stephen Chow of 'Shaolin Soccer' and 'Kung Fu Hustle' fame) known for its play on words and slapstick exaggerations of Chinese culture. It's a pretty shrewd ad considering millions of young Chinese internet users grew up watching those films and imitating the antics.

I just don't think it as being overtly nationalistic. It's just playing on the popular fact (or myth) that Google doesn't stand a chance against Baidu for searches in Chinese.

Anti-foreign business sentiment is on the rise in China, based on the somewhat true belief that foreign companies are given advantages
domestic companies are not. The tax rate is LOWER for foreign companies than for domestic companies, but since so few domestic companies come close to fully reporting, it is probably a wash.

What is really happening though is that the authorities realize the Chinese people want them to be tougher on foreign businesses than they
have been in the past so there has definitely been a marked uptick in terms of the enforcement of existing laws against foreign companies.

For many years, huge numbers of foreign companies (mostly smaller ones) would go into China and hire 2-10 Chinese employees and then never register the company at all and not pay employer taxes. Those days are rapidly ending as the Chinese authorities have definitely stepped up their enforcement of the company registration requirements and I personally have just within the last three months seen what has to be a statistically significant increase in th number of foreign companies
being shut down in China for having failed to register. I hate to sound heartless here, but as cheap and easy as it is to get legal in China,
these companies really have no excuse.

Anti-foreign business sentiment is on the rise in China, based on the somewhat true belief that foreign companies are given advantages
domestic companies are not. The tax rate is LOWER for foreign companies than for domestic companies, but since so few domestic companies come close to fully reporting, it is probably a wash.

What is really happening though is that the authorities realize the Chinese people want them to be tougher on foreign businesses than they
have been in the past so there has definitely been a marked uptick in terms of the enforcement of existing laws against foreign companies.

For many years, huge numbers of foreign companies (mostly smaller ones) would go into China and hire 2-10 Chinese employees and then never register the company at all and not pay employer taxes. Those days are rapidly ending as the Chinese authorities have definitely stepped up their enforcement of the company registration requirements and I personally have just within the last three months seen what has to be a statistically significant increase in th number of foreign companies
being shut down in China for having failed to register. I hate to sound heartless here, but as cheap and easy as it is to get legal in China,
these companies really have no excuse.