Even as they confer super strategic advantages in the long run, open digital environments create vulnerabilities for the United States and its democratic partners in the quick time period. The Chinese government can inject itself into, and try to form, home political discourse — at low value, and with believable deniability. It can use its cyber capabilities to surveil journalists and activists overseas so as to repress criticisms of China’s rights record while stealing intellectual property that provides China a boost within the technology competitors. Beijing tightly controls its own data environment, which affords it a degree of immunity to…