Li-Chang Kuo, the Father of Taiwan's Precision Industry

(Chinese)

Li-Chang Kuo, the father of Taiwan's Precision Industry, was praised by Chiang Ching-Kuo during his inspection of "Cheng Kuang Precision Industry Co., Ltd." in Tainan in 1974. Chiang Ching-kuo, then Premier of the Executive Yuan, also presented Kuo with the four characters "利用厚生" (meaning "utilize resources for the benefit of all"), encouraging him to continue using resources effectively to help Taiwan's industrial transformation for the benefit of all. Ke-Wang Mei, former president of Tunghai University and then Secretary-General of the Youth Affairs Commission, said, "Premier Chiang specifically instructed during the Executive Yuan meeting: pay attention to the newly emerging precision industry in Tainan — its leader is a 21-year-old young scientist, Kuo Li-Chang(郭立昌)."

Fig 1: Li-Chang Kuo, the father of Taiwan's Precision Industry in 1974

Li-Chang Kuo, born in 1953, grew up in extreme poverty due to a prolonged legal ordeal lasting 13 years. This hardship stemmed from his father, Kuo Kun-Cheng (A-Kun), who in 1950 rescued an alleged communist spy. The family survived only on the meager income his grandmother earned by paper-cutting with small scissors. In 1962, after experiencing a life-threatening assassination attempt, Li-Chang Kuo came to understand the root cause of his family’s poverty and began rigorously training his technical skills. By the time he graduated from Park Elementary School in 1965, he was already capable of independently assembling automated machinery and producing precision progressive dies for “deep-drawing” super-fine eyelets.

In February 1966, A-Kun was arrested and imprisoned. To support a family of nine, Li-Chang Kuo founded "Cheng Kuang Metal Works" in Kaohsiung. By December of the same year, he had already met the stringent requirements of the American company Avnet Taiwan Ltd., helping this New York Stock Exchange-listed firm secure NASA’s “PTH” order, contributing to the launch of Apollo 4 and indirectly helping to win the US-Soviet space race. In 1967, at the age of 14, he was nicknamed the “Dr. Blacksmith” by Avnet’s chairman, John Lane.

Fig 2: Products of Li-Chang Kuo (1966–1970)

In 1969, with the obsolescence of vacuum tubes, the electronics industry suffered widespread decline. Li-Chang Kuo assisted Mr. Chen Yong-Tian of Yong Fu Electric Company — who had previously helped him during difficult times — by developing "Transistor-based Radio Cassette Recorder." This successfully secured orders from Jewish buyers in New York and led Taiwan’s industrial transformation into the transistor era in the 1970s.

In 1970, Mr. Dieska, a former U.S. Navy serviceman with a strong interest in communications products, came from the United States. Li-Chang Kuo developed a wide range of antenna products for him, which were sold in 144 countries and achieved an 85% global market share, helping Avnet become “Channel Master.” As a result, Kuo went on to develop next-generation products — "Satellite Receiver." After completing his reserve officer military service, he traveled to the United States to commercialize satellite receivers. On March 13, 1979, he founded the “Blackstone Angel Fund” in New York to support startup entrepreneurs.

Following his success in transistor products, demand for insulating materials surged. Japanese suppliers frequently raised prices or cut off supply arbitrarily. To gain control, Kuo established an insulation materials factory in Yongkang and simultaneously developed European sources for copper and steel, including special materials such as silver-plated phosphor bronze. Consequently, when he founded Cheng Kuang Precision Industrial Co., Ltd. in 1974 near Taiping Bridge (as shown in Fig 1), he had already laid the foundation for Taiwan’s precision industry for the next 50 years — earning recognition from Chiang Ching-Kuo as the “Father of Taiwan’s Precision Industry.”

The publicly announced land price as shown on Fig 1 in June 1974 for Cheng Kuang Precision: "NT$99.8 per square meter." This reflects the low burden on entrepreneurs at the time, due to strict construction bans during major infrastructure projects and tight government controls on land speculation, which enabled industrial entrepreneurs to succeed with minimal resources.

At the encouragement of Premier Chiang, Kuo assisted Tainan Mayor Chang Li-Tang in establishing a sister-city relationship with San Jose, California. Kuo strengthened a direct bridge between "Taiwan and Silicon Valley" in 1979, opening new pathways for Taiwan’s development. When San Jose Mayor Janet G. Hayse led a delegation to Tainan, Cheng Kuang Precision Company served as the liaison. Kuo worked with IBM engineers at Cheng Kuang Precision (Fig 1) to envision the future of "Personal Computer" (PC), and in 1979 he went to Silicon Valley and Seattle to realize this vision. Satellite receivers and PCs became Taiwan’s “Cash Crops” in its successful industrial transformation by 1986, also embodying the principles of "Reaganomics."

A key principle of Li-Chang Kuo was his refusal to apply for patents (never patenting). He continuously replaced yesterday’s products by new, and once a product had generated sufficient profit, he released it to others, helping new entrepreneurs succeed and promoting a broadly prosperous society.

At the urging of his wife, Linda Din (丁玲虹，Ding Lin-Hong), to “save Barbie,” Kuo (also known as Peter Kuo) revived the Barbie doll production in 1984 with a simple yet decisive effort. He was called a “Gadget Master” by Barbie’s inventor, Ruth Handler. Mattel’s response, however, was to take Kuo’s zero-defect production tools to Malaysia while beginning layoffs, ultimately shutting down its Taiwan plant (MLT) in 1986 and leaving 5,000 people unemployed.

During the era of precision industry development under Kuo, employees acquired lifelong skills. In contrast, workers at MLT, even after 20 years, lacked transferable skills; many struggled after layoffs, with some turning to taxi driving only to face robbery. In response, Linda Din (made a wish and) vowed: “I will invent a ‘cashless system’ that allows taxi drivers to earn a living safely without carrying cash.” With Kuo’s support, this vision — called the “Rich Taiwan Plan”— was realized as a "social responsibility investment" (SRI). Din presented the results at the 1997 APEC meeting in Vancouver, sparking widespread attention and offering hope to countries affected by the Asian financial crisis.

Linda Din was subsequently invited as a speaker at APEC in 1998, where she proposed “TES,” be admired as a "Total Economic Solution." This contributed to the formulation of an “E-Commerce Constitution,” earning her the title “Mother of E-Commerce.” Through the efforts of Kuo and Din in APEC from 1997 to 2009, cashless systems became a primary transaction tool in the digital economy. Recently, it has been noted that by 2025, global cashless transactions had reached "US$200 trillion" — like a runaway train heading toward a cliff — deviating from the original purpose of solving structural social problems.

While serving as an APEC speaker in 2003, Din proposed the “Linhorn Indicator : A=C/GDP=0.36” in Chiang Mai and Bangkok. The value 0.36 aligns with the “60–40 rule” and reflects the principle for which Kuo was praised by Chiang Ching-Kuo — promoting social welfare. Only when A=0.36 can a “people–enterprise–government” tripartite win-win society be achieved as "Possible Trinity," which has been Kuo’s mission goal for over 60 years.

Li-Chang Kuo (Peter Li-Chang Kuo), as a representative to APEC CEO Summit and an expert in the third sector, has advocated initiatives such as "Anti-Corruption (AC), Cashless systems, E-Commerce, ICT, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), IIA-TES, and Micro-Business (MB)..," contributing to international legislation. Earlier in his career, he helped establish Taiwan’s precision industries, including automated machinery, precision molds, applied materials, and electronic components. His advocacy of “common grounding” enabled the development of compact and lightweight devices; his invention of embedded antenna technology advanced the smart economy era; and his "Power Chip Module" (PCM) is poised to lead humanity into a three-dimensional world.