Man pours water on Baidu CEO at AI conference

This framegrab taken from AFPTV shows a man (R) pouring water Baidu co-founder and CEO Robin Li during Baidu Create 2019 in Beijing on July 3, 2019. - A man burst on to a stage and poured water over the head of Li as the founder of China's dominant search engine spoke at a company-sponsored event on Artificial Intelligence. (Photo by QIAN Ye / AFPTV / AFP)

BEIJING: 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 July 3.

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.