Inauguration of the science and technology competition from private company rocket: The Cooperation model of Detour Runoff (Source: Agenda 21st century Taiwan)

In 2020, the worst infectious disease in the century has taken hundreds of thousands of lives, causing unprecedented lockdowns of countries and cities all over the world. As the pandemic is easing up, countries begin to study how to safely resume production and trade. Liu Po-Hsiang, professor at St. John’s University, pointed out that it is still a challenge to fully recover cross-border circulation in the short term, especially as the US-China trade war has expanded from tariffs to technology boycott. The confrontation between the US and the WHO might revive isolationism, and the international competitions become willfully oblique games.

Suffering from the Great Depression in the 1930s, the US had practiced isolationism about one hundred years ago. Not until during World War II, did Europe and the US invest and share tremendous resources in scientific research. Today, as the pandemic resulted in world-wide economic depression and the world is in an inexplicable international political climate, the US government decided to impose sanctions on Chinese technology and move production for American businesses out from China. China would have to seek its own development by finding technological support from countries other than the US.

On May 30, the SpaceX rocket was successfully launched, carrying out its first civilian mission with astronauts. Prior to this, the US had commissioned the Russian state company Roscosmos to transport American astronauts to the space station. The success of the SpaceX suggests that the US government can be independent from Russian technology. This is only the beginning of the outer space race, followed larger projects of Moon and Mars from the US, Russia, and China.

Professor Liu said that among many short-term plans, the outer space competition also has been extended to the 5G communication, the tipping point of the current US-China technology war. The US Federal Communications Commission actually approved SpaceX to launch 11,943 communications satellites. If SpaceX succeeds with the Starlink project of satellite communications, it will directly skip 5G and go straight to 6G or even 7G. But after all, the current satellite project is not yet mature, and Apple is bound to launch 5G iPhone in 2020. In the process of de-Chinalization of American core technology, these communication and AI technologies will take the mode of “Detour Runoff “, breaking the current linking model applied in the US, Taiwan, South Korea and China before.

The so-called “Detour Runoff” is to avoid direct stream flow between the two major economies of the US and China, and seek a solution to divert and combine. China is bound to seek European aides, such as STMicroelectronics, Infineon Semiconductor and other supports. Predictably, in the latter half of 2020 to 2021, the world will still in the battle against Covid-19, while the US is taking isolationism during the trade war with China. At this time, Taiwan and South Korea’s proactive deployment of Detour Runoff is to split from the mainstream by linking East Asia to India and Europe.

Professor Liu also pointed out that in the post-pandemic era when Europe and the United States still have to partially close their borders, Taiwan and South Korea are responding agilely like cats. They take flexible actions to connect with European technology and enhance their capabilities in design and advanced manufacture. For example, Taiwan recently established Cyber Security Technology Hub (TCSTH) with European manufacturers. The hub is deployed ahead of schedule to reduce the over-reliance on East Asian industries and expand partnership in South Asia and Europe. In the era of Detour Runoff, victory belongs to those look forward new technologies.