Foxconn chairman sees biggest challenge in US-China trade war

Bloomberg

Terry Gou, the billionaire chairman of Apple Inc.’s main iPhone assembler, said the biggest challenge facing his Foxconn Technology Group is a trade war between the US and China.
Foxconn has a number of response plans to a trade war, Gou said, without elaborating, at the annual shareholder meeting of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., his main listed unit. While Foxconn is a Taiwanese company, it puts together iPhones and other gadgets at plants across mainland China.
Foxconn, which is China’s largest private employer and has about a million on its payroll, is sensitive to any escalation in the trade dispute that impacts on Apple, the source of more than half of Hon Hai’s revenue.
China’s rising economic and technological prowess is at the heart of a dispute with the US that, while waged through retaliatory trade tariffs, is also aimed at prying open the Asian nation to US businesses and restricting the use of government aid to advance strategically important industries.
“The biggest challenge facing Foxconn is a US-China trade war,” Gou said. “The trade war is not about trade, but it is a tech war, and it is a manufacturing war.”

Foxconn’s Terry Gou chafes at China overtime caps
Bloomberg

The billionaire chief of Foxconn Technology Group, Apple Inc.’s main iPhone assembler, argues that China’s “unreasonable” restrictions on overtime hours hurts his workers and the company’s competitiveness.
Taking aim at criticism Foxconn over-works its employees to meet soaring demand before the annual holiday shopping season, Terry Gou told shareholders his workers actually want to work more hours and that forcing them to put in less time reduces their income.