Pretty insane for the writer or even China/Russia to believe the US, with all of its resources, wouldn't be able to make their own accurate maps.
Pretty weird to think the US is the only country they might be worried about. Maybe not right now, but in general.
In 2024, with satellites producing imagery in ~10 cm resolution, the most important factor determining the quality of maps is probably the amount of money available for analyzing satellite imagery into maps, and you definitely can't hide militarily important features like roads, railways, bridges and buildings.
I recently learned that satellite images are often corrected to match known maps.
US spy satellites can take sharp pictures which look they were taken by a drone is flying close to the ground.
Reconnaissance planes were largely obsoleted by satellites when digital cameras were invented (before that, satellites physically dropped film to ground to be developed), and as Russian anti-air missiles got better. The primary use for optical reconnaissance planes these days is for up-to-the-minute coverage of rapidly developing situations, such as in war, where the next satellite flyover might not be until several hours later.
(RF & radar reconnaissance planes are very important to modern warfare.)
It's highly unlikely that a satellite-based telescope would rotate/turn the lens. Turn it relative to what? It's in 0g, there's no part that's held in place by friction to the ground. Any rotating joint would make the two sides move in opposite directions. And if you think about that, let one side be much smaller, and allow rotating by multiple turns instead of just 0-360 or such, you might just invent the gyroscope.
They turn the whole satellite with gyroscopes (flywheels) and/or propellant.