Business tycoon Terry Gou (郭台銘) has resigned from his position as a member of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) board of directors, the company announced on Saturday.
Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said in a statement that Gou resigned from his post for “personal reasons.”
Since founding the company 49 years ago, Gou led it to become one of the world’s most prestigious tech conglomerates, Hon Hai said, adding that the company owes its founder a debt of gratitude for his contributions.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
As its nine-member board already has five independent directors, the resignation of Gou would not require an immediate by-election to swear in a new member, the company added.
On Monday last week, Gou told a news conference that he would run for president next year’s election on an independent ticket.
Asked what he would do as a potential national leader if China exerted pressure on him using his position as a major shareholder in Hon Hai, Gou said that if sacrificing his personal wealth could prevent the Chinese Communist Party from attacking Taiwan, he would be willing to bear such a burden.
Gou now has to collect about 290,000 signatures, or a number equivalent to at least 1.5 percent of the electorate in the previous presidential election, within 45 days of his formal application to run as an independent candidate.
Should his presidential bid prove successful, Gou would face off against New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Vice President William Lai (賴清德), who chairs the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) in the presidential election on Jan. 13 next year.
Separately, Hon Hai on Friday said that about 1,000 people were employed at its Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin facility, after the Washington Post reported that the site was “largely empty.”
The iPhone assembler said that the complex in Wisconsin’s Racine County was “not idle,” and was producing photovoltaic inverters and servers.
Hon Hai said that a glass dome at the center of the Mount Pleasant campus — which locals interviewed by the Washington Post described as showing “few signs of life” — was being used as a high-performance computing and Internet communications control center.
In response to a Yahoo Finance report on Tuesday stating that Hon Hai had put two buildings up for sale “after years of neglected promises to bring thousands of jobs to Eau Claire and Green Bay” in Wisconsin, the company said that the properties were not relevant to production in Mount Pleasant.
Hon Hai said the property sale plan had the support of the government in Wisconsin, and that it was unlikely to affect the Mount Pleasant campus’ production and operations.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
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