Google (GOOG) says it's catching Baidu (BIDU) in China search market

Baidu.com (NASDAQ: BIDU) has fended off Google, Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) advances in the Chinese search market for quite some time, and very successfully. But Google is never one to give up, and the global search leader has gained some significant market share gains in China after the Sina partnership in addition to the new partnership with Tianya.com -- both of which are heavily-trafficked Chinese internet portals.

Google's strategy with both of these partnerships was to put the heat on Baidu.com, no doubt. Google's head of business and sales for Taiwan and Hong Kong said this week that "We are closing up the gap with them (Baidu)," which is code for we are dead set on catching and surpassing Baidu as China's pre-eminent search and portal destination.

China is the world's second-largest internet market (after the U.S.) with 162 million web users. Don't think for a second that Google won't pull some cash from its war chest to crush Baidu.com with every ounce of strength it can muster.

Right now, Baidu leads China with a 58.1% share of the internet market (as in, a destination), compared with Google's 22.8% share for the second quarter of 2007. What's striking here is that Google's share is up over 4% from the prior quarter. 4% in a single quarter -- nah, that's not aggressive at all, right?