US Vice President Mike Pence has called on Google to end its censored Chinese Search engine the "Dragonfly" project. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Pence in a speech on Thursday said American companies must reconsider turning over intellectual property as they expand in China.

Google's modified search engine -- codenamed "Dragonfly" -- would "strengthen Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers," Pence said. The news about Google's plan to build a censored search engine in China broke in August when The Intercept reported that the search platform would blacklist "sensitive queries" about topics including politics, free speech, democracy, human rights and peaceful protest, triggering internal protests among some Google employees.