Summary:
- Foxconn's founder, Terry Guo, has officially declared his candidacy for the Taiwan presidential election.
- This move has significant implications for Taiwan's politics and economy, given Guo's background and popularity.
- Opinion polls indicate a close race, with the KMT's Hoyo-E and Terry Guo potentially splitting votes.
- Guo's business ties with China and his stance on cross-strait relations could influence the election's outcome.
- The 72-year-old self-made billionaire's entry adds uncertainty to the upcoming election and its potential results.
You've been on the ground there. Yep. We thought this might happen last week. It didn't. It's happened, of course, conveniently if you're back in Hong Kong. Yeah, right. Right.
Give us a sense of what this means for politics there and the economy. I spent just about the entire day with him on Wednesday, including going on a boat to the islands closest to Xiamen, just within earshotter, within reach of Xiamen. He deflected the questions about candidacy, but he sure sounded and looked like a candidate on the two days that I actually spent with him, Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. And now we are just seeing a feed offline that he has declared his candidacy. Now, this is not necessarily a game changer unless you're Hoyo-E, who is the KMT candidate. Now, in the past, Terry Guo has identified as a KMT member. And he ran for the KMT back in 2019, and the election in 2020 he lost.
But this time, it's a little bit of a different situation, because in opinion polls right now, the KMT, which is the opposition party, but they're the Guangming Dong. They're the nationalists. They're the big, not pro-China, but pro-China engagement, much more so than the DPP, the incumbent. In opinion polls right now, the DPP vice presidential candidate, William Leiting Du, is leading. But it's a four-horse race, as you can see right here. With William Leiting Du leading, but the latest polls, only about 34%. Now, Taiwan People's Party, you can bring that back up, if you don't mind, Kowen Zhe is number two.
That means the KMT candidate is trailing Hoyo-E, number three. Now, Terry Guo, in theory, would cannibalize votes from Hoyo-E. So I'm sure Terry Guo's candidacy is not pleasing the opposition KMT at all, because he could basically, if the polls play out as they are right now, could essentially hand the election to the incumbent DPP in less than five months' time.
How is he? How is he? Yeah, how is he in person? You spend the day with him, you mentioned. You were in a boat too. He's a vigorous 72-year-old. He's a self-made billionaire. He's worth about $7 billion. He set up Hone High Precision with its trade name, Foxconn. Obviously, they make just about every single iPhone that all of us have. They have iPhone City in Zhengzhou in China. So he obviously wants better business ties. He doesn't want war. He doesn't want a worsening relationship across the street, because he wants to keep factories going in China. But again, they're at the mercy of the US-China relationship, export controls, and the like. We talked a lot about that. I think he wasn't quite a candidate yet. I think he'll probably be more articulate about that matter going forward. Can he win? Well, I think at this point, with nobody having a pinion pole tally of more than 35%, anyone could win right now. A lock and change in Taiwan politics. But again, can two basically KMT candidates in Hoyu'i and Terry Guo win with both of them running? That's the big question. They might take votes from each other.