Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) on Tuesday expressed his opinion that China is trying to prevent Foxconn founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) from running for president. The remarks were made during an appearance on MirrorTV’s program focused on Taiwan’s upcoming 2024 election.
Speaking during the show, Chiu talked about China’s recent tax audit of Foxconn. He noted that if this were a routine tax audit or inquiry, it should have been officially announced by Chinese state-run media outlets like Xinhua News Agency or The People's Daily and not by the Global Times. He also said that in general, such issues should be discussed by economists, but this time it was a political scientist from Xiamen University who came out to comment on this issue. Chiu used these indicators to conclude that the move is politically motivated and that China wants to prevent Gou from running for office.
Gou who is the founder of Hon Hai Technology Group, also known as Foxconn, announced his decision to run in the 2024 presidential election in September. He chose to run as an independent candidate and must collect 290,000 signatures by Nov. 2, in order to qualify.