Introduction
The conflict across the Taiwan Strait has been about the existence of two Chinas. Throughout the History of Taiwan before 1949, China had never shown the least interest in occupying the island of Taiwan.
Although it was ceded in 1683 to Emperor Kangxi, the second Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, after the Qing army successfully defeated the pro-Ming loyalists who had made the island their stronghold, Emperor Kangxi was reluctant in taking control of the island. It was on the advice of his Admiral Shi Lang that the Emperor reluctantly accepted control over the island.
Despite having control of the island, nothing much was done by the Qing authorities to improve the livelihood of the inhabitants. In fact, travel and immigration restrictions to the island were imposed to prevent the Hans from settling on the island.
Under Empress Dowager Cixi, the island was ceded to the Japanese in the Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895 after China lost the First Sino-Japanese War. Since then, China had lost all sovereignty over the island. In fact, after the island was cede to the Japanese in 1895, a group of pro-Qing officials, hoping to reunify the island with the mainland, proclaimed the island as an independent republic. The independence of the Republic of Formosa lasted for only 184 days when the Japanese defeated the pro-Qing forces in a blood shed battle.
Early Inhabitants
The island of Taiwan or Formosa, as she is also known, excluding Penghu, was first populated by the Negrito followed by the Austronesian people. Indigenous Taiwanese or indigenous peoples are the native peoples of Taiwan. Their ancestors are believed to have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han Chinese immigration began in the 17th century.
The Negrito is a class of several ethnic groups that inhabit isolated parts of Southeast Asia. Their current populations include 12 Andamanese peoples of the Andaman Islands, six Semang peoples of Malaysia, the Mani of Thailand, and the Aeta, Agta, Ati, and 30 other peoples of the Philippines. Reports from British traders also speak of Negrito people on Borneo (Sarawak).
A festival celebrated by the Saisiyat tribe suggests the early habitation of Negritos in Taiwan. The Saisiyat tribe celebrates the black people in a festival called Ritual of the Little Black People (矮靈祭). Migrant Austronesians, who are called aborigines today, are estimated to have arrived 6000 to 10000 years ago from the Malay Archipelago. After the arrival of the Austronesians, the Negrito population declined, with the last group living nearly 100 years ago near the Saisiyat tribe.
According to Saisiyat legend, the Saisiyat and the Negritos coexisted peacefully until the Negritos started molesting aboriginal women. In response, the Saisiyat decimated the Negrito population by destroying a bridge that many of them were crossing, leaving only two survivors. The remaining Negritos threatened the Saisiyat with curses and crop failures if they were to forget them, passing down songs and culture by which to remember the “little black people”.
The Austronesian-speaking peoples are various populations in Oceania and Southeast Asia that speak languages of the Austronesian family. They include Taiwanese aborigines; the majority ethnic groups of East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Madagascar, Micronesia, and Polynesia, as well as the Polynesian peoples of New Zealand and Hawaii, and the non-Papuan people of Melanesia. They are also found in Singapore, the Pattani region of Thailand, and the Cham areas of Vietnam (remnants of the Champa kingdom which covered central and southern Vietnam), Cambodia, and Hainan in China. The territories populated by Austronesian-speaking peoples are known collectively as Austronesia.
Taiwan’s Austronesian speakers were traditionally distributed over much of the island’s rugged central mountain range and concentrated in villages along the alluvial plains. Today, the bulk of the contemporary Taiwanese Aborigine population resides in the mountains and the cities. The issue of an ethnic identity unconnected to the Asian mainland has become one thread in the discourse regarding the political identity of Taiwan. The total population of Aborigines on Taiwan is around 458,000 as of January 2006, which is approximately 2% of Taiwan’s population.
For centuries, Taiwan’s indigenous peoples experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of conquering peoples. As a result of these intercultural dynamics, as well as more dispassionate economic processes, many of these tribes have been linguistically and culturally assimilated. The result has been varying degrees of language death and loss of original cultural identity. For example, of the approximately 26 known languages of the Taiwanese Aborigines (collectively referred to as the Formosan languages), at least ten are extinct, another five are moribund and several others are to some degree endangered. These languages are of unique historical significance, since most historical linguists consider Taiwan as the original homeland of the Austronesian language family.
Today the indigenous peoples of Taiwan face economic and social barriers, including a high unemployment rate and substandard education. Discrimination and biasness towards these indigenous peoples are also not uncommon. They have been actively seeking a higher degree of self-determination and economic development since the early 1980s. In 1996, the Council of Indigenous Peoples was promoted to a ministry-level rank within the Executive Yuan. A revival of ethnic pride has been expressed in many ways by aborigines, including incorporating elements of their culture into commercially successful pop music. Efforts are underway by indigenous communities to revive traditional cultural practices and preserve their languages. The aboriginal tribes have also become extensively involved in the tourism and eco-tourism industries.
Andrew Michael Teo 