02/19/2019 / By JD Heyes
Google executives often argue that in order to ‘do business’ in countries where governments are, shall we say, more restrictive than the United States, they have to go along to get along.
And if the country is as big and promising as China, well then, going along to get along becomes much more permissive than, say, trying to break into the Albanian or Afghanistan markets.
But that said, Google could and should be a more responsible corporation in refusing to enable China’s authoritarian Communist leadership in its quest to ‘reunite’ with the island democracy of Taiwan, which Beijing claims is just an errant enclave though by history and by rights, it’s not.
First, a little history.
Before World War II began for most of the rest of the world, China was fighting a civil war between a large Communist faction and the Nationalist government. But in 1937, the Empire of Japan invaded China, which caused the rival factions warring with each other to join forces in order to meet and defeat the Japanese invaders.
After World War II ended, the Communists and Nationalists took up arms against each other once again. Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the Communists were victorious, forcing the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek to flee the mainland for the island of Taiwan in 1949.
For decades the split perplexed the U.S. government as to which entity — the Chinese Nationalists, who were democratic, or the Communists on the mainland — was the ‘proper’ government. Eventually, the U.S. formally recognized the mainland as the Chinese government but also made a security arrangement with Taiwan to protect it from the mainland (and other enemies).
But beginning 20-odd years ago, as mainland China began to grow in wealth and power, Communist leaders began looking at Taiwan not as a separate country but as an autonomous entity that still belonged under mainland Communist rule. And subsequent Chinese leaders have vowed to “reunify” with Taiwan by force if necessary.
Enter Google. While the U.S. has maintained relations with both countries, the search behemoth appears to be picking a side.
As Infowars notes, the search giant‘s “Google Maps” app just revealed the location of a highly classified Taiwanese missile defense base after introducing 3D maps of the area.
At present, the government of Taiwan in Taipei is trying to work with Google to blur or otherwise hide the images, while simultaneously putting out a statement noting that the sites won’t be in the same places if a war were to occur. (Related: China’s push to further isolate Taiwan is working, as El Salvador becomes latest ‘ally’ to bail.)
“Actually, the site of defense infrastructure at times of peace will not be the same as those at times of war,” said Defense Minister Yen Teh-fa.
Infowars noted further:
The images reveal US-made Patriot surface-to-air missile (SAM) installations in New Taipei as well as detailed information of two military bureaus.
It is important to note that the incident is being reported by the mainstream media as an accident despite China’s recent threat of military force against Taiwan and its relationship with Google via the development of the prototype censored search engine custom made for China, Project Dragonfly.
Also, the big reveal isn’t the first time Google Maps has exposed the location of sensitive military installations and bases. In December, a Russian mapping firm “inadvertently” revealed the locations of bases in Israel and in Turkey by blurring them.
When a Russian mapping service tried to obscure every military facility in Turkey and Israel, it had the unintended effect of *revealing* the exact locations of over 300 distinct sites (whoops) 😬
See the juicy details in my latest piece for @FAScientistshttps://t.co/2UJOVospF5
— Matt Korda (@mattkorda) December 10, 2018
“The exact blurring-out of the bases provided the size and layout of airfields, nuclear facilities, bunkers, barracks, and more,” Infowars reported.
Taiwan’s situation is extremely tenuous. The country is shunned by most nations around the world because they don’t want to “anger” China and because, like Google, doing business on the mainland is much more important than some ‘renegade’ province’s national security. That means Taiwan, save for a U.S. security assurance that nobody wants to see tested, is on its own.
Read more about Google’s evil intentions at EvilGoogle.news.
Sources include:
Tagged Under: China, Communists, endanger, evil Google, Glitch, Google, Google Maps, identify, missile defense, national defense, national security, nationalists, Taiwan
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