InfoWorld reports that Baidu.com is working with some of China's leading telephone network operators to ready new mobile search applications for the launch of 3G (third generation mobile network) services in China, an area Google has made plans to dominate:

"The Chinese Internet search giant, which is already far more popular than Google among its home audience, is also already the leader in mobile search in China through data services it launched two and a half years ago via the nation's WAP (wireless access protocol) system," according to the report. "Users in China can access Baidu's WAP portal, wap.baidu.com, for a host of services, including Web search, news, mobile blogs, maps, images, a dictionary, and stock information."

What happens in China has implications for the rest of the world, mainly due to the tremendous size of its market. As of September, China had 523.3 million mobile phone subscribers, according to their Ministry of Information Industry; that's more than double what we have stateside.

Baidu readies mobile search apps in answer to Google [InfoWorld via Yahoo]