Kaohsiung Mayor Wins KMT Race Beating Foxconn Boss

Taiwan's main opposition party Kuomintang (KMT) on Monday picked a populist, pro-Beijing mayor as its candidate for the 2020 presidential race against an incumbent who often bashes the mainland.

KMT chose Han Kuo-yu to run against incumbent Tsai Ing-wen in the January election. He defeated former Foxconn Technology chairman Terry Gou in a party primary.

Han was supported by 45 percent of respondents in telephone opinion surveys over the past week, the party said. Gou was second with 28 percent. Three other candidates also sought the nomination.

Han has vowed to make peace with the mainland. In March he signed deals with four Chinese cities to sell NT$5.2 billion worth of Taiwanese agricultural products.

He was elected mayor in November of the port city of Kaohsiung, normally a ruling-party stronghold, on pledges to improve the local economy.

Tsai's ruling Democratic Progressive Party suffered a major setback in the November local elections amid voter dissatisfaction with her management of the economy.

She has since rebounded in popularity ratings by taking a tough stance against Beijing, which has ratcheted up pressure on the self-governing island to reunite with the mainland.

Gou's candidacy attracted interest in overseas business circles, as Foxconn churns out iPhones and other consumer electronics as a contract manufacturer for Apple and other brands.

He founded Foxconn Technology 45 years ago and built it by investing heavily in factories around China to tap into the vast, cheap labour pool there. Gou stepped down as company chairman in June to run in the primary. (AFP)