A mercurial billionaire, Terry Gou, shakes up Taiwan’s presidential race

ALThough half-expectedKMTKMT’KMT’DPP, it was dramatic. On August 28th Terry Gou, founder of Foxconn, one of the world’s biggest electronics manufacturers and a supplier to Apple and others, told a packed auditorium he was joining the race to be Taiwan’s next president. Wearing his trademark blue cap emblazoned with the Taiwanese flag, and giving military-style salutes, the 72-year-old billionaire said he would fight the election due next January as an independent. Having failed for a second time to win the nomination of the opposition Nationalist Party, known as the Kuomintang (), he dedicated his candidacy to making Taiwan and China trust each other. Mr Gou vowed to bring half a century of peace to the Taiwan Strait: “I will never allow Taiwan to become the next Ukraine.”In fact his entry probably makes it harder for a China-friendly candidate to win. Two such candidates are already in the race to lead Taiwan’s 24m-strong democracy: the s , the mayor of New Taipei City, who calls for talks with Beijing; and Ko Wen-je, the former mayor of Taipei, running for the Taiwan People’s Party. Mr Ko prefers to talk about bread-and-butter issues rather than China, but has in the past adopted an accommodative position similar to the s. That leaves Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s vice-president, running for the Democratic Progressive Party (), as the only candidate taking a hard line on China.