Until now, Baidu has been the faceless bad guy: China's biggest search engine has increased market share, after its rival Google refused to bow to censorship demands.

But Baidu wants you to like it. Today its founder and chief executive Robin Li hosted a meet-and-greet with journalists, and then rang the Nasdaq's opening bell from Beijing.

Censorship, he argued, isn't good for Baidu either.

“It is not an advantage for Baidu because we have to block things,” he said. “It does not give us better user experience.”

Although he refused to quantify the extra cost imposed by the government's self-censorship demands, Li complained that sometimes he has to personally deal with censorship issues.

This rare frankness shows Li's confidence: he's happy to show his face, knowing that things are going well for Baidu. Last month the company reported a 118 per cent jump in net profit for the second quarter.

But Baidu is stuck with the label of the self-censoring search engine - and critics will relish any future evidence of state favouritism.