In December 2022, China’s government abruptly ditched its strict Covid-19 pandemic controls after thousands of citizens protested against the social and economic pain they were causing. It was a complete surprise: Despite closely tracking the situation from afar, I and many other China watchers had failed to anticipate this sudden and major shift in government policy which deeply affected life in China and the country’s openness to the rest of the world.

Anticipating what China’s government will do has gotten even more difficult since then, as relations with the United States have deteriorated and as Beijing treats information that was once readily available like state secrets. This means that significant decisions on U.S. policy are being made based on diminishing insight into China’s internal dynamics, raising the risk of miscalculations.

It’s a dangerous time to be flying blind. Misinterpreting China’s technological capabilities could endanger America’s competitive edge. Misreading Chinese domestic social pressures leaves us unprepared for major policy changes such as the sudden end of the Covid restrictions, and miscalculating Beijing’s intentions on Taiwan could inadvertently lead to a major global conflict.

For Western scholars of China, the era before the pandemic now feels like a distant golden age. Despite always tight Chinese information controls and opaque policymaking, academics could still visit the country, navigate archives, cultivate relationships with their Chinese counterparts and pursue research. The resulting academic findings were good for America: For decades, U.S. government agencies regularly called on scholars — and still do — to provide briefings and testimony and to mine their research for insights that were vital to informing American policy decisions.

Then came the pandemic. China sealed itself off from the world, slamming the door on academic fieldwork in the country by foreign scholars as well as in-person exchanges with Chinese officials and other contacts. The Covid restrictions were finally lifted, but the landscape for scholars had been transformed: There were fewer commercial flights to China, new restrictions on access to archives and interview subjects, heightened difficulties researching sensitive topics such as the pandemic and the slowing Chinese economy, and a generally more closed-off environment.

Beijing’s jealous guarding and systematic manipulation of sensitive data, which has only increased under Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, compounds the challenge. The Chinese government hasn’t published a white paper on its defense strategy — which used to be issued every two or three years — since 2019, has restricted a range of key data including information that might offer clues into how many Chinese lives were taken by the pandemic, and in 2023 began restricting international access to a critical database of Chinese academic papers, statistics and other information.