Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) plans to establish a platform to facilitate dialogue with young people, Gou’s campaign team said yesterday.
The platform would provide assistance to young Taiwanese and could operate under the Yonglin Education Foundation, said Amanda Liu (劉宥彤), a senior member of Gou’s campaign team for the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential primary and chief executive officer of the foundation.
Gou gave instructions to set up the platform in a meeting at the foundation yesterday morning, after being briefed on the foundation’s work over the past few weeks, she said.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
From giving talks on campuses and attending forums, Gou is aware that university students have many questions and he hopes to offer them a helping hand, Liu said.
“I believe that he will continue to have a role in public affairs, and that he will not say no to anything that can benefit Taiwan and the Republic of China,” she said.
Gou’s Tiger Fans — a Facebook fan group with more than 18,000 members — on Sunday announced that it had stopped collecting signatures for a petition for Gou to run in next year’s presidential election as an independent candidate, but Liu said that she was not aware of when the petition started or ended, as Gou’s office was not involved.
Gou on Sunday sent two handwritten letters to the fan group and other groups to thank them for their support, she said, adding that his office would hold a meeting with fans later this month once details are decided.
In its announcement, the fan club said that it had met its first-phase goal of collecting more than 50,000 signatures for the petition, launched last month.
The election laws say that a prospective candidate intending to run as an independent must collect signatures from 1.5 percent of the electorate from the previous legislative election, which means that 274,576 signatures are needed to put Gou on the Jan. 11 ballot.
“The stop is temporary, not the end, as we look forward to the beginning of the next phase,” the group said, adding that it would continue as soon as Gou makes “a final decision.”
Separately, KMT Legislator Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday said he and Gou share the same goal of building a better future for Taiwan.
In early June, Wang, who served as legislative speaker for nearly 17 years, said he would not to participate in the KMT’s primary after questioning whether the party could hold a fair race.
Asked if he would run as Gou’s vice president, Wang said that he would not rule it out.
“So far, that [being Gou’s running mate] has not been planned,” Wang said, adding that he and Gou had yet to discuss joining forces for the elections.
Asked if the two of them and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) could form an electoral alliance strong enough to beat KMT presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), Wang said: “This is a hypothetical question, as no such alliance has been formed.”
Yesterday, Han said that he had urged KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) to unite the party’s members before the elections.
If the party headquarters got involved, certain heavyweights could be convinced to join forces, he said, adding that he would put forth his best effort to show his sincerity in cooperating.
Han said that he is still waiting for Gou to return his calls, adding that he had phoned Gou again and left a message on his voicemail.
He had met with Wang several times over the past month and would meet with him again if possible, Han added.
Hong Kong-based American singer-songwriter Khalil Fong (方大同) has passed away at the age of 41, Fong’s record label confirmed yesterday. “With unwavering optimism in the face of a relentless illness for five years, Khalil Fong gently and gracefully bid farewell to this world on the morning of February 21, 2025, stepping into the next realm of existence to carry forward his purpose and dreams,” Fu Music wrote on the company’s official Facebook page. “The music and graphic novels he gifted to the world remain an eternal testament to his luminous spirit, a timeless treasure for generations to come,” it said. Although Fong’s
China’s military buildup in the southern portion of the first island chain poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply, a defense analyst warned. Writing in a bulletin on the National Defense and Security Research’s Web site on Thursday, Huang Tsung-ting (黃宗鼎) said that China might choke off Taiwan’s energy supply without it. Beginning last year, China entrenched its position in the southern region of the first island chain, often with Russia’s active support, he said. In May of the same year, a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) force consisting of a Type 054A destroyer, Type 055 destroyer,
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
Taiwan is planning to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based X-ray imaging to customs clearance points over the next four years to curb the smuggling of contraband, a Customs Administration official said. The official on condition of anonymity said the plan would cover meat products, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, large bundles of banknotes and certain agricultural produce. Taiwan began using AI image recognition systems in July 2021. This year, generative AI — a subset of AI which uses generative models to produce data — would be used to train AI models to produce realistic X-ray images of contraband, the official
RSS