Maintaining high-tech superiority holds the key

Lee Woo-il

The author is the standing vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology and emeritus professor at Seoul National University.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan staged a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, triggering the Pacific War. In spite of the atomic bomb-led devastating defeat of Japan, the United States eagerly supported its restoration. By serving as the U.S. military base for logistics support during the Korean War, Japan became an economic power and closest ally to the U.S. in one of history’s biggest ironies.

Still, the U.S. did not let Japan grow too big. It arranged the so-called Plaza Accord among the U.S., Britain, France, West Germany and Japan to depreciate the U.S. dollar and cause the Japanese yen to inflate by more than twice its value. The sudden jump humbled Japan’s mighty exports and caused the asset bubble burst heralding the “lost two decades” for the Japanese economy.

Under the careful opening and reform campaign from December 1978, China dispatched an army of scientists and engineers to the U.S. to learn western technologies. Since the normalization of diplomatic relations in January 1979, the U.S. contributed to China’s rapid economic advance. But the U.S. sharply shifted its policy on China when its leader Xi Jinping turned assertive and challenged the U.S.-led order after the world’s most populous country became the world’s second most powerful economy. The U.S. is funneling an astronomical budget in research and development through laws like the CHIPS and Science Act and slapping multiple regulations to prevent cutting-edge technologies from flowing into China in order to ensure its comfortable technology lead over China.

Despite the tense confrontation on the façade, the U.S. secretary of state secretary visited China for the first time in five years in a friendly gesture. Movements on the private front also have been making subtle changes. Tesla announced that it was building a new Megafactory on battery storages in Shanghai. Xi met with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, the first foreign entrepreneur who has visited China since the pandemic.

The geopolitical movements these days shows that nothing in international relationship can come before national interests. To defend sovereignty and economic gains amid the intensifying competition among global powers, we must build up our value. Irreplaceable advanced technology is the sole key to sustain and enhance our value in the age of fierce competition over technology.

U.S. President Joe Biden headed straight to the advanced chip factory of Samsung Electronics in Pyeongtaek during his first visit to Korea in May last year. Korea possesses the world’s top technology on chipmaking, particularly in memory, inviting heated interests from other countries. But their attention could quickly cool if our supremacy is overtaken by latecomers to cause security instability. We must keep up innovation in science and technology to maintain high-tech superiority.

We must move beyond the strategy as fast follower and become a tend-setter in science and technology model to sustain the edge. Private-sector R&D investment is 2.5 times bigger than government investment. The government must up our R&D budget to concentrate R&D activities in strategic areas.

R&D system must change so that researchers could become free and aggressive in innovation. Bureaucracy must be upgraded to become more knowledgeable in high-tech from the current system where government officials rotate every one or two years. It is encouraging that the new space administration would be filled with officials with expertise in the field.

It is imperative to reinforce human capital in the science and technology fields. Human resources are thinning due to demographic woes. Because brains in science and math prefer medical schools, the shortage in R&D manpower in science and engineering field is worsening. The elementary and secondary education must shift away from college-entry focus to deepen learning on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and heighten student knowledge and interest in science and technology. More efforts should be paid to attract foreign talents.

Popularization of science and technology is also urgent. Despite the advance in tech standard, the public awareness on science and technology remains disappointingly low. Disinterestedness in science and technology dries up human capital in the field and could cause a waste in national capabilities by breeding doubts in scientific and technological facts.

Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt highlighted the role of science and technology in future wars by citing the value of IT in the Ukraine war. He argues that the innovative ability in science and technology will determine national security and fate. Korea which lacks natural resources must exert all-out efforts to innovate science and technology for the survival of the country.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.