President Joe Biden came away from his summit with China’s President Xi Jinping on Nov. 15 committed to prosecuting what he called “simple, straightforward competition” with China. Yet Beijing is already beating the United States and its allies in one crucial domain: data.

在11月15日与中国国家主席习近平的峰会中，拜登总统承诺将与中国进行他所谓的“简单、直接的竞争”。然而，北京已经在一个关键领域击败美国及其盟友：数据。

Data is the oil of the 21st century, the indispensable resource that will fuel artificial-intelligence algorithms, economic strength and national power. The wellspring of this data is all of us: our health records and genetic sequences, our online habits, the supply chain flows of our businesses, the terabytes of imagery guzzled by phones, drones and autonomous cars.

数据相当于21世纪的石油，是推动人工智能算法、经济实力和国家力量不可或缺的资源。这些数据的源头是我们所有人：我们的健康记录和基因序列、我们的上网习惯、我们企业的供应链流、手机、无人机和自动驾驶汽车吞噬的巨量图像。

The competition for global influence in the 21st century will require protecting and harnessing this data to achieve commercial, technological and military advantages. So far, China is winning, and the West is barely even engaged.

在21世纪，竞争全球影响力将需要保护和利用这些数据来获得商业、技术和军事优势。到目前为止，中国正在赢得比赛，而西方几乎没有参与。

Through a latticework of recent laws and regulations, Mr. Xi has been hard at work making the Chinese Communist Party the world’s most powerful data broker. How does Beijing do that? By walling Chinese data off from the world, exerting new extraterritorial power over global data flows and putting foreign companies operating in China in a legal bind — all while absorbing other countries’ data by means licit and illicit.

Mr. Xi knows that even locking down only Chinese data, representing the patterns and behavior of some 1.4 billion people, would hobble Beijing’s rivals in the quest for global economic superiority.

中国数据代表了约14亿人的模式和行为，习近平知道，仅仅封锁中国数据也能阻碍北京的竞争对手获得全球经济优势。

The Biden administration has spoken about the importance of data in our competition with China. But no visible strategy has emerged. That threatens Americans’ privacy, economic competitiveness, national security and future global standing. This will be a major test of America’s China policy in 2022.

Washington’s blind spot to the centrality of big data in Beijing’s ambitions and to the ways our own data are being exploited in service of those ambitions is perplexing at a time when American politicians are growing more concerned about the collection and potential exploitation of big data by U.S. tech giants.

美国政客日益担忧美国科技巨头对大数据的收集和潜在滥用，然而大数据在中国野心中的核心地位，以及我们自己的数据在实现这些野心的过程中被滥用的方式，却落入华盛顿的视野盲区，这让人困惑。

It is further perplexing because Americans in bipartisan fashion also are wising up to the ways that Beijing exploits and weaponizes other U.S. resources, like our capital markets.

更加令人困惑的是，美国两党意识到北京了对美国资本市场等其他美国资源的利用和武器化。

That’s evident in how Washington is finally — if fitfully — beginning to address the self-destructive flow of U.S. dollars into China’s military and global surveillance apparatus. While these sorts of measures still need to be scaled up dramatically, at least policymakers now have some tools to curb Beijing’s easy access to U.S. capital.

这一点尤其体现在华盛顿终于开始解决——尽管是时断时续地进行——美元自毁性地大量流入中国军事和全球监视机构的问题。虽然此类措施仍需大幅扩展，但至少政策制定者现在有一些工具来限制北京轻松进入美国资本市场。

Not so when it comes to data, where Beijing believes that it has a free hand and that the West is too distracted or feckless to respond meaningfully. Mr. Xi is thinking and acting big, and has been since his first days in power.

然而就数据而言，情况并非如此。北京认为可以为所欲为，而西方过于分心或鲁莽，无法做出有意义的回应。习近平从上台之日起就设想长远，大胆行事。

In 2013, shortly after assuming the presidency in Beijing, Mr. Xi declared: “The vast ocean of data, just like oil resources during industrialization, contains immense productive power and opportunities. Whoever controls big data technologies will control the resources for development and have the upper hand.”

习近平在2013年就任国家主席后不久宣布：“浩瀚的数据海洋就如同工业社会的石油资源，蕴含着巨大生产力和商机，谁掌握了大数据技术，谁就掌握了发展的资源和主动权。”

Since then, Beijing has been building the framework to ensure that mass accumulations of data serve the Chinese Communist Party’s strategic interests.

从那时起，北京一直在构建框架，以确保大量积累的数据服务于中共战略利益。

A series of laws implemented in 2017 asserted the party’s power to gain access to private data on Chinese networks, whether in China or associated with Chinese firms such as Huawei overseas.

Now Beijing has quietly enacted a new set of laws — first the Data Security Law in September, followed in November by the Personal Information Protection Law — that go even further by demanding not just access to private data but also effective control over it.

现在北京已经悄悄颁布了一套新的法律——首先是9月的《数据安全法》，随后是11月的《个人信息保护法》——这些法律不仅要求访问私人数据，而且要求对其进行实际控制。

This has a huge impact on foreign firms operating in China. Not only must their Chinese data stay in China and be accessible by the state, but Beijing now demands control over whether they can send it to their own headquarters; to a corporate lab in, say, California; or to a foreign government that has made a law enforcement or regulatory request.

这对在华经营的外国公司产生了巨大影响。他们的中国数据不仅必须留在中国供政府访问，而且北京现在要求控制这些信息的去处，例如是否可以发送到自己的总部、加利福尼亚州的一个企业实验室，或者一个已提出执法或监管要求的外国政府。

Beijing’s new laws may make it criminal to comply with foreign sanctions against China that involve data — like shutting off banking or cloud services to a Chinese entity linked to human rights atrocities. In these cases, foreign firms can comply with U.S. law, or they can comply with Chinese law, but not both.

根据北京的新法律，遵从涉及数据的对华制裁可能会被认定为犯罪——例如对牵涉人权暴行的中国实体关闭银行服务或云服务。在这些情况下，外国公司可以选择听从美国法律或中国法律，但必须二选一。

The impact of these laws is clear. Tesla, Apple and others have opted to build dedicated Chinese data centers — sometimes in partnership with Chinese state entities, lest they lose access to the large Chinese consumer market. Goldman Sachs faced pressure against sending memos to its U.S. headquarters.

Beijing’s recent actions complement its longstanding efforts to buy, steal and otherwise acquire data from foreign sources worldwide. Beijing hacks multinational corporate databases. It runs “talent recruitment” programs at foreign universities and firms. It buys foreign companies, such as an Italian maker of military drones. It funds its own data-driven start-ups in open foreign markets like Silicon Valley.

The approach is nakedly nonreciprocal. It relies on access to foreign data while denying foreigners access to Chinese data — and appears to assume that foreign governments won’t respond. The United States, after all, has no comprehensive federal approach to data governance, while the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation is focused mostly on consumer privacy.

这种做法是赤裸裸的不对等，依赖的是对外国数据的获取，同时拒绝外国人访问中国数据——并且似乎假设外国政府不会做出回应。毕竟，美国没有全面的联邦数据治理办法，而欧盟的《通用数据保护条例》主要关注消费者隐私。

Will American and allied policymakers develop approaches to limit strategic data flows to China? For now, the Biden administration’s answer is: maybe.

美国和盟国的政策制定者是否会制定办法，以限制战略数据流向中国？目前，拜登政府的回答是：也许吧。

“Our strategic competitors see big data as a strategic asset,” the U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said this summer, “and we have to see it the same way.”

This is clear and compelling language. But data did not appear to be high on Mr. Biden’s agenda with Mr. Xi, judging from official readouts of the summit.

And to date, U.S. policy remedies are idle and insufficient.

迄今为止，美国的政策补救措施无效且不充分。

In June, the administration issued an executive order embracing a new regulatory process to restrict cross-border data flows on national security grounds. But the new process hasn’t yet been put to use — not against Chinese drones, Chinese access to U.S. data centers and biotech labs, or other potential targets.

In the meantime, U.S. diplomats’ and trade negotiators’ engagement on data issues is dominated by bitter fights with European regulators over privacy rules for American tech giants. The far greater threat from Beijing goes largely unaddressed.

The good news is that if democratic nations get their act together, they may be in a better position than Beijing, which complicates its own progress through apparent paranoia.

好消息是，如果民主国家齐心协力，他们可能会比北京处于更有利的位置，北京的多疑妨碍了自己的前进。

In recent months, Mr. Xi has cracked down on private Chinese tech giants such as Alibaba and Tencent, forcing them to relinquish their data troves to state-controlled third parties. This crackdown, which helped erase more than $1 trillion in market value, will make these companies less innovative now that they no longer control their data.

最近几个月，习近平打击了阿里巴巴和腾讯等中国民营科技巨头，迫使它们将自己的数据宝库交给政府控制的第三方。此次打击行动抹去了超过1万亿美元的市值，也降低了这些公司的创新能力，因为它们不再对自己的数据有控制权。

But banking on Chinese authoritarian overreach to preserve America’s edge is no strategy.

但指望靠中国的专横霸道来保持美国的优势算不算策略。

A smarter approach would begin domestically, with actual (and robust) implementation of the Biden administration’s June executive order. This would entail blocking or unwinding arrangements by which large volumes of sensitive U.S. data flow to China, whether through medical records, cellphone apps or other channels — all of which are basically unregulated right now.

一种更明智的方法将在国内开始，实际（和有力地）执行拜登政府6月的行政命令。这将需要阻止或解除大量美国敏感数据流向中国的协议，无论是通过医疗记录、手机应用程序还是其他渠道——所有这些目前基本上都不受监管。

Democratic allies must also work together to promote data sharing among themselves while limiting flows to China. A blueprint was introduced by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. This idea, called Data Free Flow With Trust, ought to become allied policy.

For upward of a generation, Beijing has been coldly effective in designing a strategy of global data mercantilism: data hoarding for me, data relinquishing for thee.

过去整整一个世代，北京在设计全球数据重商主义战略方面一直非常有效：我囤积数据，你放弃数据。

If Washington and its allies don’t organize a strong response, Mr. Xi will succeed in commanding the heights of future global power.

如果华盛顿及其盟友不组织强有力的回应，习近平将成功地占据未来全球力量的制高点。