IT mogul Terry Gou is trying to become president of Taiwan again. The current government has “brought Taiwan close to war” with China, he warns.
– I will definitely not let Taiwan become the next Ukraine, he says at a press conference where the candidacy is presented.
Gou is the founder and former leader of Foxconn. The company is of enormous importance to both Taiwan and China – its iPhone factories in China make the company one of Asia’s largest employers.
And ideologically, Gou is closer to the Kuomingtang, the opposition party that takes a softer line on China than the now-ruling DPP. China regards Taiwan as its own, and the threatening signals of military conflict are an ever-dominant political issue.
The question, however, is whether Gou has any chance. He lost in the Kuomingtang primaries in both 2019 and this year, and is therefore running as an independent. That means he needs to collect signatures from 1.5 percent of the country’s voters, roughly 290,000 names, to qualify.
Current President Tsai Ing-Wen cannot run for re-election, but her vice president Lai Ching-Te of the ruling DPP is currently tipped to win ahead of the January 13 election.