When China’s largest search engine, Baidu, decided to launch its first overseas version in Japan, there was a lot of hype in the international press about the “Chinese Google” posing a threat to Yahoo! Japan. However, now that it has finally launched, the Asia Sentinel reports that most of its users are actually Chinese netizens seeking to search for content banned by the “great firewall”:

Quietly, however, in mid-March Baidu, the monster NASDAQ-listed portal, did a favor for China’s smut seekers when it quietly launched a US$15 million Japanese version called Baidu.jp. With its server based in Japan, it allows users from China to access pages otherwise banned by Beijing – images included….

….For those who have found the Japanese site, and the numbers appear to be growing, Baidu has revealed what they want to see. Baidu.jp placed 908th in terms of overall traffic in Japan last week, according to the ranking site Alexa.com. But nearly 60 percent of those searching were from China. Despite friction over still-festering World War II issues such as the Nanjing Massacre, sex slaves, the Yasukuni War Shrine and unexploded chemical weapons, Chinese Internet users have put aside any antipathy. They like what they’re seeing: Japanese adult video stars in their mostly R-rated glory

Here’s what a few bloggers had to say shortly after Baidu.jp’s modest debut:

Someone calling himself Lu Xinxin trumpeted the announcement at www.lvxinxin.com: “Baidu Japan is good stuff! (Girls, don’t click, neither should anyone under 18!)”

“Baidu Japan is finally online! Liu Xinxin said it’s good stuff. It is, it is! All the search results pop up easily!”

“Is this legal in Japan?” wrote “Kereal” in seeming astonishment.

“I’m sweating!” confessed “Aether.”

“You can put in a few words and come up with this astonishing stuff,” wrote an anonymous poster. “You can tell how good it is by noticing how the female comrades here react to it. It is really very good, but nothing stunning for other countries, especially Japan which has a large, specialized pornography industry. Still this is huge for China!”

”I hope now Baidu.jp can develop a video search engine,” wrote “Ivxnxn.”

Those poor freedom-deprived Chinese netizens. Let’s hope that the Chinese authorities don’t decide to block Baidu.jp!