IF YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW FOCUSED TERRY Gou is on the campaign trail, look at his pants. When the billionaire Foxconn CEO gives televised interviews, senior aides crouch by his feet, just off camera. If he strays off message, they’re primed to steer the presidential contender back on course by giving his pant legs a quick tug.
Gou’s cuffs remained unruffled as he spoke to local news stations on June 15 at Kun Shan University in the southern Taiwan city of Tainan before greeting students with running high fives like a WWE wrestler. His platform in the 2020 presidential election in the island territory, he says, is how to profit from a trade war. As the U.S. and China have ramped up tit-for-tat tariffs on a range of imports over the past year, Taiwan is in a prime position to exploit the conflict, Gou tells TIME. “The trade war is also a technology war,” he says. “Taiwan can become the supply-chain in between.”
Although the two sides recently brokered a temporary trade cease-fire, the U.S. and China are locked into divergent paths long term. Gou, 68, sees it ending with two rival tech zones: China servicing developing nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America on one side, and the U.S., Europe and allies on the other. “People still talk about the G-20,” he says, “but today there’s really only the G-2.” That represents an opportunity for Taiwan, which has historic links with both of these superpowers, to be a “gatekeeper,” he says.
It’s a theory he’s hoping to put into practice as leader of this island of 23 million people, which has ruled itself since effectively splitting from the mainland following China’s civil war in 1949. In June, Gou stepped down as chairman of the company he founded over 40 years ago to dedicate himself full time to the race for leader of the opposition Kuomintang party, from which he could challenge incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen next year. Gou says deteriorating cross-strait relations are what pushed him into the political fray. “Today’s President doesn’t have communication channels with Beijing,” says Gou. “This is a very bad situation.” But is Taiwan’s wealthiest man the right person to fix it?
Bu hikaye Time dergisinin July 22, 2019 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Time dergisinin July 22, 2019 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Michael Crow The president of Arizona State on handling campus protests, embracing AI, the future of college sports, and partying
Since Oct. 7, protests and conflicts over free speech have erupted on college campuses and beyond. It seems that the job of university president has become one of the more stressful occupations in America. What's your stress level right now?
The most anticipated summer TV shows
The sun is coming out, the days are getting longer, and life somehow just seems that little bit happier. But even as nature beckons us out of doors, the lure of the fluorescent blue-light box remains, especially as a season once associated with reruns and stagnation only seems to get more packed with appointment viewing.
The decades-long build to Eruption
WHEN MICHAEL CRICHTON AND HIS WIFE SHERRI FIRST started dating, all they did was hike. Every weekend there they were, taking in the scenery from the coasts of California to the mountains of Hawaii. The island of Kauai was their favorite place, its rivers carving through volcanic rock and steep, jagged cliffs cutting the sky. The couple would wake before dawn to be first ones out on the trails, and together they'd take in the sunrise.
OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES
A new comedy takes on the unfiltered realities of pregnancy, motherhood, and friendship
MOST INFLUENTIAL COMPANIES 2024
From retail behemoths to AI pioneers, these are the businesses shaping our world
EL LOCO
PRESIDENT JAVIER MILEI'S MISSION TO REMAKE ARGENTINA
The parents who regret having children
NO ONE REGRETS HAVING A CHILD, OR SO IT'S SAID. I'VE heard this often, usually after I'm asked if I have children, then, when I say I don't, if I plan to. I tend to evade the question, as I find that the truth-I have no plans to be a parent is likely to invite swift dissent. I'll be told that I'll change my mind, that I'm wrong, and that while I'll regret not having a child, people don't regret the obverse. Close family, acquaintances, and total strangers have said this for years; I let it slide, knowing that at the very least, the last part is a fiction.
Health Matters
TICK SEASON IS ONCE AGAIN UPON us, and so are fears of Lyme disease. Most people who contract Lyme after a tick bite fully recover after a course of antibiotics-but for roughly 10% of people, for reasons doctors don't fully understand, the medicine doesn't take, leaving them with chronic symptoms including fatigue, brain fog, and neurological issues that can be completely debilitating. Other people with Lyme are never treated at all, which can cause lasting issues without clear knowledge of where they originated.
Japan's ruling party burns through another leader
IT'S NOT EASY BEING JAPAN'S Prime Minister. Though the center-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has dominated the country's politics for nearly seven decades, the top job has frequently changed hands. Fumio Kishida is just the third leader in the past quarter-century to last at least two years. Yet once again, change is coming.
DEMONIZING RURAL AMERICA
By the time I was 7 or 8 years old, I was keenly aware of my father's drug use. He didn't snort pills in front of me yet―he saved that for my teen years—but he talked about pills freely, and I knew he took them. And by the time I became an adult, everyone in my nuclear family-and plenty in my extended family-was struggling to cope with the impacts of violence, incarceration, and addiction.
