China Joins Hamas, Erases Israel From Map

In the shadows of virtual maps, China's power corrupts as it erases Israel

Prime Minister of the State of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu holds up a map as he speaks during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the United Nations headquarters on Sept. 22, 2023 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

By Roger L. Simon 11/1/2023 Updated: 11/2/2023

No greater proof of John Dalberg-Acton’s famous quote about power tending to corrupt and absolute power tending to corrupt absolutely exists today than the leadership of the People’s Republic of China.

Lord Acton added in his letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, “Great men are almost always bad men.”

Well, the “great men” who rule the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have achieved what Hamas, despite its endless chants of “From the river to the sea,” was unable to do.

They have wiped Israel off the map—literally.

The Wall Street Journal reported: “Internet users in China are expressing bewilderment that the name Israel doesn’t appear on leading online digital maps from Baidu and Alibaba, an ambiguity that matches Beijing’s vague diplomacy in the region and contrasts with its attentiveness to maps generally.”

“Vague” diplomacy? It hardly seems vague when you erase an entire country. Even tiny Luxembourg is identified.  

In the case of Baidu, key Israeli cities are shown but not the country in which they're located. (Baidu and Alibaba are major Chinese companies that exist by permission of and under the supervision of the CCP.)

This omission didn’t happen by accident; neither was it meant to be ignored. The WSJ isn’t the only media outlet that discovered it. Many news outlets and their audiences across the globe will know about it, if they don't already.

The erasure of Israel is a form of twisted virtue signaling to China’s allies (Russia, Iran, and North Korea, plus terror proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis) that the regime is on their side, while being able to remain somewhat above the fray and avoid any involvement that these days is known as kinetic.

None of this is new, of course. The CCP, with its Maoist roots and alignment with so-called liberation movements, has always supported the Palestinian cause.

But the CCP didn't jump in on Hamas’s side immediately, initially calling for calm and so forth. Perhaps, it realized that the “optics” of Hamas’s atrocious barbarian behavior might not be the best.

Recently, however, the state news agency Xinhua reported, “Israel’s actions have gone beyond the scope of self-defense.”

Almost simultaneously, Israel was erased from the online maps.

The hypocrisy of this is monumental. Imagine how China would have reacted had it been attacked.

But that doesn’t matter, since the only principle China has followed in all this is the one that guides them always: world domination, gradual and inexorable. And yet, so many of our leaders choose to ignore China’s behavior for fear of shaking the tiger or out of self-interest.

In other cases, our politicians do a little virtue signaling of their own, thereby avoiding dealing with the reality of Chinese expansionism.

California's Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom informed us of his priorities on his recent trip to Beijing in this X (formerly Twitter) post from Fox’s Elex Michaelson.

"I ask @GavinNewsom why not bring up human rights directly w Pres. Xi?" Mr. Michaelson wrote.

"He says the State Department advised he bring it up with China’s VP & Foreign Minister so he could focus on climate change w Xi.

"'I had the opportunity to talk about the most important issue in our lives!’”

Forget the Uyghurs. Forget Falun Gong. Forget democracy demonstrators. Forget the Belt and Road infrastructure program that's exploiting the globe. Forget the Wuhan Institute of Virology. For Gavin Newsom, it’s climate change!

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I could go on about how Chinese leader Xi Jinping's China profits from the climate obsession by being the world’s greatest exporter of solar panels and rare earths for electric cars, much of which comes from Chinese-owned mines in the Congo that depend on child labor, but why bother? It wouldn’t make a dent with Mr. Newsom.

Meanwhile, Israel is erased from the map.

Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-founder of PJMedia, and now, columnist for The Epoch Times. His latest book “American Refugees” will be published by Encounter 11/14 and is available for pre-order now. “Roger Simon is among the many refugees fleeing blue state neoliberalism, and he’s written the best account of our generation’s greatest migration.”—Tucker Carlson.

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