Hon Hai Group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) yesterday clarified comments he made on Facebook on Sunday about Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) view on Taiwan’s future and called for increased investment in high-end technology.
On Sunday, Gou responded to a 20-word, bullet-point statement Han made last week at a seminar at Harvard University.
Han said that Taiwan should rely on “the US for national defense, Japan for technology, China for the market and itself for hard work.”
Gou on Sunday altered that statement, saying the nation should rely on “peace for national defense, competition for the market, research and development for technology and itself to determine its fate.”
“The US is constantly fooling us with old weapons,” he said yesterday, adding that to date, no nation that is reliant on the US for national defense has come to a good end.
Taiwan should instead invest in the US’ advanced technology sector and utilize its results, he said, adding that he intended to speak with former US House of Representatives speaker Paul Ryan on the issue.
Economy and technology are fueled by innovation and Taiwan must interact with the US, which has the best technology and know-how in artificial intelligence 5G, Gou said.
Taiwanese must also be innovative to create a better future for the nation, he said.
Regarding the economy, Gou said that agricultural produce should not become the mainstay of exports, as the industry’s value could not support itself given Taiwan’s limited landmass.
Semiconductors, on the other hand, are high-value products, he said.
The government must understand that the US-China trade dispute is based on both sides restructuring industry, hence the competition and “muscle flexing” of their technology sectors, Gou said.
Taiwan must define its position in such a conflict and ask itself what it is doing for young people aside from purchasing US arms, Gou said, adding that changes enacted with this in mind could bring boundless possibilities.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift