Man pours water on Baidu CEO at AI confce

BEIJING, July 03 (AFP): A man burst on to a stage and poured water over the head of Baidu CEO Robin Li as the founder of China's dominant search engine spoke at a company-sponsored event on Artificial Intelligence on Wednesday.

Highly visible public acts of defiance are relatively rare in China's big cities where security measures can be tight and celebrities like Li generally travel with a pack of security.

Baidu has faced enormous criticism in China in recent years after a medical advertising scandal and discontent with changes to its search result listings that favour its own content.

Li was telling the crowd about Baidu's autonomous car development as he opened the two-day tech conference, when the man sauntered up on stage and dumped a bottle of water on his head.

It appeared to catch Li off guard and he stood stunned and unmoving for a second as the water poured down.