Baidu’s PR head, Qu Jing, has left the search engine giant after her controversial remarks on work culture exploded on Chinese social media. The surfacing of a series of videos made by Qu has led to the public casting doubt on the company’s corporate values. Why it matters: The incident has escalated into Baidu’s biggest PR crisis in years. In one video, Qu criticized a Baidu employee who refused to take a 50-day business trip during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when China imposed strict travel restrictions across the country. In the short video, Qu was recorded smacking a small paper figure with the letters SCMP written on it, widely regarded as referring to the South China Morning Post.