{"id":37229,"date":"2023-08-28T05:16:17","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T05:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=37229"},"modified":"2023-08-28T05:16:18","modified_gmt":"2023-08-28T05:16:18","slug":"terry-gou-to-run-for-taiwan-presidency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/08\/28\/terry-gou-to-run-for-taiwan-presidency\/","title":{"rendered":"Terry Gou to run for Taiwan Presidency"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The billionaire founder of tech giant\u00a0Foxconn, Terry Gou, has announced he will run for president of Taiwan as an independent candidate, pledging to fix cross-strait relations and boost Taiwan\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a press conference on Monday, Gou \u2013 a well-known and outspoken businessman \u2013 announced what he called \u201cthe era of entrepreneurs\u2019 rule\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have decided to join the 2024 presidential race,\u201d he said, touting his business and finance experience, including dealings with China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGive me four years and I promise that I will bring 50 years of peace to the Taiwan Strait and build the deepest foundation for the mutual trust across the strait \u2026 Taiwan must not become Ukraine and I will not let Taiwan become the next Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Taiwan's<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gou has hinted at running for several months after he was not chosen as the candidate for the main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT). He pledged support for the KMT\u2019s chosen candidate, Hou Yo-ih, but continued to hold public campaign-style events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gou will need to collect 290,000 signatures by early November to qualify as an independent candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s government has vowed to subsume Taiwan into the Chinese state, under what it calls \u201creunification\u201d, but which is overwhelmingly rejected by Taiwan\u2019s people and its major political parties. Under Xi Jinping\u2019s rule, China has grown increasingly aggressive towards Taiwan. It cut communications with Taipei after president Tsai Ing-wen\u2019s election win in 2016, and in recent years has sent increasing numbers of war planes and ships into Taiwan\u2019s air defence identification zone (ADIZ).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday the Chinese military anpp to stage a total encirclement of the main island, launching 32 aircraft and nine ships, including weaponised drones, fighter jets, reconnaissance aircraft, and bombers. It prompted both Taiwan and Japan to scramble their own warplanes in response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Monday, Gou blamed Tsai\u2019s ruling Democratic Progressive party (DPP) for escalating tensions, calling them arrogant and corrupt.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the rule of the Democratic Progressive party in the past seven years or so, internationally, they lead Taiwan towards the danger of war. Domestically, their policies are filled with mistakes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entrance of Gou into the campaign adds further intrigue to what was already an unusual race. Lai Ching-te, the current vice-president and presidential nominee for the ruling DPP, is polling ahead of both the KMT\u2019s Hou, the current mayor of New Taipei City and a former police chief, and Ko Wen-je, the former mayor of Taipei City and nominee for the Taiwan People\u2019s party he founded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A poll last week found Lai\u2019s support was at 43%, compared with 27% for Ko, and just 14% for the KMT\u2019s Hou. More than 16% were undecided or refused to answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his speech Gou called for an anti-DPP coalition. Ko, Hou and Gou are all considered to be from the pan-blue side of Taiwanese politics which adheres more closely to a Chinese identity. However initial reaction from analysts was that Gou\u2019s entry into the race would probably split the blue vote further and instead benefit the DPP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lai, who had in the past referred to himself as a \u201cworker\u201d for Taiwanese independence, has tempered his approach since taking the nomination and stuck closer to the position of Tsai. The president has avoided crossing any Chinese red lines by saying the Republic of China (Taiwan) is already a sovereign nation with no need to declare independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday, Lai told international media he would continue Tsai\u2019s work on boosting defence, strengthening international ties, and seeking dialogue with Beijing but only on the premise of \u201cparity and dignity\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Story by Chi Hui Lin<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The billionaire founder of tech giant\u00a0Foxconn, Terry Gou, has announced he will run for president of Taiwan as an independent candidate, pledging to fix cross-strait relations and boost Taiwan\u2019s economy. At a press conference on Monday, Gou \u2013 a well-known and outspoken businessman \u2013 announced what he called \u201cthe era of entrepreneurs\u2019 rule\u201d. \u201cI have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":37231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[11363,6263,5717,1451,10387,7421,9331,5262,913,7445,5196,911,12354,3545,2264,2702,8601,10954,2959,9463,3874,5331,5572,7968,5396,421,5424,7574,3805,11377,6200,10041,6965,12731,2711,10236,10486,9830,5180,5251,9829,10415,594,7898,8327],"class_list":["post-37229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-aircraft","tag-beijing","tag-billionaire","tag-businessman","tag-campaign","tag-chinese","tag-city","tag-cut","tag-democratic","tag-drones","tag-economy","tag-election","tag-finance","tag-founder","tag-government","tag-identity","tag-independence","tag-international","tag-japan","tag-jets","tag-lead","tag-mayor","tag-military","tag-nine","tag-peace","tag-police","tag-politics","tag-presidency","tag-president","tag-presidential","tag-race","tag-speech","tag-split","tag-taipei","tag-taiwan","tag-tech","tag-terry-gou","tag-tsai-ing-wen","tag-ukraine","tag-war","tag-warplanes","tag-work","tag-who","tag-xi","tag-xi-jinping"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37232,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37229\/revisions\/37232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}