Taiwanese Negritos

The Austronesian speaking tribes of Taiwan are recognised as the island’s indigenous inhabitants. But what if they were not the first? Oral tradition among the Saisiyat people points to an earlier population resembling the ‘Negritos’ of Southeast Asia, who died out long ago. If true, then this ancient group would be the first human beings to live in Taiwan.

‘Negritos’, or Asiatic Pygmies, is the word ethnographers use for the indigenous peoples of maritime Southeast Asia. Unlike the dominant Malay, Indonesian and Fillipino populations, Negritos are under 150 cm and dark-skinned. They include groups like the Aeta, Semang and Sentinelese, who although diverse in culture and language, share a similar appearance. Negritos descend from the first people to arrive in Southeast Asia and were displaced by more numerous farmers and seafarers 5,000 years ago.

The Saisiyat are an aboriginal group of 6,000 from northwestern Taiwan. Anthropologists believe the Saisiyat to be among the first peoples to settle Taiwan. Among them exist oral accounts of an earlier Negrito population.

Every two years, the Saisiyat celebrate Pas’tai’ai – the ‘Ritual to the Short People’, and the tribe’s largest celebration. Thousands gather to sing, dance and drink rice wine, wearing blades of silver grass to protect them from ill-fortune. Performers wear coloured robes, beads, mirrors and bells which clang as they dance. Other rituals take place in secret and are closed to outsiders. Pas’tai’ai takes place on the tenth lunar month and lasts several nights. The festival was at risk of dying out until its revitalisation in the the 2010s.

Legend has it that the Saisiyat once lived by a tribe of dark-skinned ‘short people’ they called the ‘Ta’ai’. A river separated the two peoples. Relationships were cordial until around a thousand years ago, the Ta’ai took interest in Saisiyat women. According to one version, they made advances on the chieftain’s wife during the harvest festival. In anger, the Saisiyat turned on the Ta’ai and killed all but two. Some versions say they forced a battle; others say they cut down a bridge; some say a tree fell on the Ta’ai.

The two survivors were elders. They warned the Saisiyat that the spirits of their people would curse them unless they kept their culture alive. The elders then taught the Saisiyat the dances and songs of the T’ai, which they recited every two years to this day. Local caves said to house the Ta’ai spirits are forbidden to visitors. The Saisiyat tell of sickness and misfortune befalling those who visit them.

The Ta’ai of legend resemble Philippine Negritos. Dutch colonists of the 1600s claimed accounts of ‘Little People’ were once common, and similar, though less developed, accounts still exist amongst the Tsou tribes of Taiwan.

Aeta people are indigenous to Luzon, Phillippines

Archaeologists have found no trace of an earlier, Negrito presence in Taiwan. A 2019 genetic study, however, noted ‘strong genetic affinity’ between the Saisiyat and Atayal, and Philippine Negritos, but stated this ‘could not support a past Negrito presence in Taiwan’.

Folk tales of pixie and dwarf-life people are common in other Austronesian cultures, particularly the Haiwaiian and Māori traditions. However, the Ta’ai of Saisiyat folklore do resemble real people in the neighbouring Philippines. As hunter-gatherers leave less remains than settled communities, it is entirely possible there was once a small Negrito population living in the mountains of Taiwan. Their memory lives on in a thousand year old ritual still held today.

Sources: BBC, Edelweiss Journal of Biomedical Research and Review, Taiwan Museum Reuters

See Also:

• Taiwan
  • Taiwanese Aborigines
• The Southern Dispersal
• Population Y

Taiwanese Aborigines

Taiwanese aborigines are the original people of Taiwan. They settled the island over 6,000 of years ago. Today, most Taiwanese are of Han Chinese ancestry – the 569,000 aborigines are 2% of the population. They belong to around 20 different tribes.

The Austronesian language family began in Taiwan. In ancient times, settlers from Taiwan took to the sea. Their descendants became the modern inhabitants of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Polynesia. Of the 9 subdivisions in the Austronesian language family, 8 are exclusive to Taiwan. The descendants of those who remained are the modern Taiwanese aborigines.

Taiwanese aborigines did not consider themselves a single people but as members of one tribe or another, such as the Truku or Atayal. Some lived in the island’s western plains, where most Taiwanese cities stand today, others in the wilder, mountainous west.

The plains tribes lived in bamboo villages. They grew millet, fished and hunted deer. When the Dutch colonised Taiwan (Formosa) in the 1600s, mass-scale Han Chinese immigration assimilated the plain tribes. The modern Taiwanese census does not recognise the 200,000 or so plains aborigines as a separate people.

The mountain tribes had little contact with settlers until the 19th century. Headhunting was a common rite of passage. In some tribes, if a man did not take an enemy’s head in his life, he would not pass into the next. Mountain tribes hunted wild game and had facial tattoos. They traded pelts and camphor to Han settlers in exchange for guns and iron.

In response to raids, the Japanese invaded Taiwan’s interior in the 1890s. They considered the aboriginals barbarians to be vanquished, and over the next forty years, cowed the indigenous tribes one by one.

When the Sediq rebelled in 1930, Japanese authorities bombarded them with artillery and killed 600.

Taiwanese aborigines fought as specialist jungle troops for Japan in WW2. One of them, Terumo Nakamura, did not surrender until 1974.

The Kuomintang dictatorship that ruled Taiwan from 1945 – 1987, pushed a vigorous assimilation campaign through interrmarriage and education.

Bunun people, c.1900.

The Yami people live on Orchid Island off the coast of Taiwan. In 1982 their government dumped nuclear waste on the island, which the Yami have protested since.

Aborigines have been a minority since the 1700s. In modern, democratic Taiwan, they face higher mortality, poverty and unemployment than Chinese-Taiwanese. Of their twenty known languages, ten are now extinct, the rest endangered. Those who move to the cities risk losing their culture, those who stay face poverty.

In the 1860s, European missionaries exploited aboriginal animosity for the Han colonial system to win converts. Today, most aborigines are Christian.

In the 21st century, Taiwan has begun to embrace its aboriginal heritage as a means to distinguish it from mainland China. Aboriginal groups have made been slowly reviving their culture through tourism and education.

In 2016, Taiwanese president Tsai-Ing-Wen, herself of aboriginal descent, officially apologised on behalf of the government for historic oppression of the aboriginal community. She declared August 1st Indigenous People’s Day.

Sources: Cultural Survival, Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs and Steel (1997), New York Times, Taipei Times.

See Also:

• Taiwan
• The Ainu
• Ruc People
• Polynesian Migrations
• Taiwanese Negritos

Parasite

Parasite (2019) is a film by South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho and the first non-English language film to win Best Picture at Hollywood’s Academy Awards. The film examines the effects of wealth disparity through two families on opposing ends of the social spectrum.

Parasite was an Oscar darling. As well as Best Picture, it received the following awards and nominations in 2020:

• Best Director: won
• Best Original Screenplay: won
• Best International Feature Film: won
• Best Production Design: nominated
• Best Film Editing: nominated

It was the first Korean film to ever win, let alone be nominated for, an Academy Award.

The Kim family live in a semi-basement apartment. They are resourceful but uneducated. Their fortunes turn when son Ki-woo’s friend offers him a job tutoring the daughter of the affluent Park family. Ki-woo accepts, but to do so he must pass as a university student. Once in, Ki-woo helps his family get hired too, all lying about their qualifications and relation to one another.

The Parks live in a mansion designed by its architect former owner. They can afford tutors for their children, a chauffeur and a full-time housekeeper. The Parks are friendly and ‘nice’, though haughty and naïve. ‘She’s nice because she’s rich…’ Mrs Kim comments. ‘Hell if I had all that money I’d be nice too. Nicer even!’

Tonal shifts mark each act. While starting as a black comedy, the film takes a sinister turn and effortlessly blends thriller, horror and gothic. Careful attention is paid to its pacing and no camera shot, no line of dialogue, is without meaning or consequence. Symbolism abounds. The official premise describes Parasite as a ‘pitch-black modern fairy tale.’

An issue with film these days is a lack of originality. Nine out of ten of the 2010’s top-grossing films were either reboots, sequels or (in the case of Star Wars) both. Superhero flicks, or most big-budget all-ages action-adventure films, are often too predictable. Even if a film makes is visually stunning, well-acted or slick, it is all for nought if the audience immediately knows how it will end. The more films one watches, the more one notices clichés and tropes. Conversely, shoehorning twists or deux ex resolutions ruins a narrative if the unpredictability makes no sense. To work, a twist must be both surprising and plausible. Parasite achieves the balance perfectly.

The opening scene shows the Kim family searching for a new wifi connection after a password encrypts the old. They are all capable workers, but in an economy where ‘an opening for a security guard attracts 500 university graduates’, their merit is irrelevant. Connections are paramount. Only through social connections can the Kims can find stable employment. The film’s stairway motif represent its characters’ social standing; whether affluence, near-poverty and destitution. 

Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world, South Korea suffers social inequality. In 2015 the top 10% controlled 66% of its wealth. Status and money are everything. Success depends on getting into the right university and the stress shows: South Korea has the second-highest rate of suicide in the OECD. In a society obsessed with image and hierarchy, however, the popularity of Parasite and its critique of social inequality shows people are changing the way they think.

 

Sources: IMDB, New York Times, VOA News

See Also:

• Top Films of 2019
• The Irishman
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

The HU

‘The HU’ (2016-) of Mongolia fuse nomadic folk music with heavy metal, a style they call Hunnu Rock.  Throat singing with double kick. I usually don’t listen to metal, or Mongolian folk for that matter, but combined it is something else. Over a heavy and hard hitting rhythm, they sing lyrics from Mongolian poetry and battle cries of old. Hey traitor, bow down!

The band:

• Gala – lead throat singer and morin khuur (horsehead fiddle)
• Enkush – lead morin khuur and throat singer
• Jaya – tumor khuur (jaw harp), tsuur (Mongolian flute) and throat singer
• Temka – tovshuur (two stringed, horsetail lute)

All four instruments date back to at least the 1200s. Four extra musicians provide backing vocals, drum and bass.

‘Wolf Totem’, their first single, was released in November 2018. It shot to number one on iTunes and garnered 14 million views on Youtube. Their second single, ‘Yuve Yuve Yu’, has 20 million. A third, ‘Shoog Shoog’ was released in June, and their debut album Gereg is upcoming. Since 2018 the Hu have played 23 shows in Europe and met the Mongolian Prime Minister.  They are the most successful act to ever come from that country.

The HU (not to be confused with the better-known ‘Who’) is the Mongol root-word for ‘human’. In Chinese it means ‘barbarian’ –what their histories dubbed the Mongols, Xiongnu and other steppe peoples.  The Mongols, by the way, called the ancient Xiongnu ‘Hunnu’, yet more evidence they were the Huns.

Music is a key component of life on the steppe. In the 1980s western rock found an audience among the youth of communist Mongolia. When the wall fell, it surged. The Hu seek to preserve and renew the Mongolian musical tradition. They do more than add a Mongol tinge to metal, they make it their own.

See Also:

• The Xiongnu

The Xiongnu

The Xiongnu were the first nomadic empire and the greatest threat China had faced. From 209 BC to AD 89 they ruled a confederacy of nomadic tribes and tributary states across the Asian Steppe. Xiongnu horsemen combined the composite bow and iron stirrups to devastating effect and the echoes of their fall were felt as far as India and Rome.

The Xiongnu’s origin is uncertain. They could have been Turkic, proto-Mongol, Iranian or Siberian. Like other steppe peoples, they were shamanists who worshipped their ancestors, the sun, moon and sky. The only written records come from the Chinese, who viewed them with contempt.

The Xiongnu enter Chinese history as nomads in the Yellow River’s northern bend. Their first known leader, or chanyu, was called Touman. His warriors pillaged China until Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor, pushed the Xiongnu into the Gobi Desert and constructed the Great Wall of China to keep them out.

Huangdi died in 210 BC and his dynasty followed. In 209 BC, Touman was murdered by his son Maodun. A ruthless and charismatic figure, Maodun Chanyu united the northern tribes and founded an empire. He expelled the Yuezhi, a rival people, from western China, subjugated the cities of the Tarim Basin, and crushed a Chinese army. Instead of invading, however, he held the country ransom.

The Han Dynasty placated the Xiongnu with gold and princesses. Maodun’s people grew accustomed to southern riches and took to wearing silk and living in Chinese style homes. They built cities, kept slaves and farmed but never lost their warlike edge. Along with Chinese tribute, the Xiongnu controlled the Silk Road, trading horses from Mongolia, furs from Siberia and jade from the Altai Mountains. They left burial mounds full of tapestries and golden ornaments.

The Han-Xiongnu War began in 129 BC. The humiliating treaties cost China dearly and were often ignored by Xiongnu raiders. Defeating them in battle, however, required matching the Xiongnu strategy. China had few horses of its own.

Emperor Wu dispatched explorer Zhang Qian westward to propose an alliance with the Yuezhi, now based in Afghanistan. They refused. Next, he contacted the city Dayuan, hitherto unknown and far to the west. Its inhabitants were Greek speakers, remnants of Alexander’s conquest, and they bred powerful steeds.

In the War for Heavenly Horses, Emperor Wu acquired 3,000 mounts from Dayuan (and conquered the Tarim Basin). With them he equipped a new cavalry corps, armed with bows and lances in the Xiongnu style.

Buttressed by their ‘Heavenly Horses’, a 40,000 strong Han army thrust into the Xiongnu heartland and defeated them in 119 BC during a sandstorm. The Xiongnu collapsed into civil war and the Han gained the upper hand.

The southern branch were conquered In AD 89. They arose again in the 300s, settled in China and assimilated.

The northern Xiongnu, meanwhile, were forced west. They are mentioned once more then disappear from the pages of history.

Or did they? Three centuries later the nomadic Huns appeared on the fringes of Europe. Could they, the despoilers of Rome, have been a Xiongnu remnant, their proud history lost in the long migration west?  Since Joesph de Guignes in the 17^th century, scholars have thought so, though many disagree.

Roman, Buddhist and Hindu writers all report nomadic invasions after the fall of the Xiongnu. Each group may or may not have been their descendants:

• 89 – Northern Xiongnu leave Mongolia
• 153 – Northern Xiongnu in western China
• 350 – Xionites invade Persia
• 370 – Huns invade Europe
• 440 – Svetta Huna (White Huns) invade Central Asia
•  470 – Svetta Huna invade India

Sources: Encyclopaedia Iranica, John Man – Attila: The Barbarian King Who Challenged Rome, Silkroad, Wikimedia Commons

See Also:

• Steppe People
  
• Attila the Hun

Ainu

Ainu are the indigenous people of Japan.  25,000 live on the island of Hokkaido and a further 1,000 in the Russian territories of Sakhalin and Kuril to the north.  The Ainu are descendants of the Jomon people, who settled Japan over 20,000 years ago, long before the Yamato (ethnic Japanese) first arrived in 300 BC.  Like indigenous people worldwide, centuries of institutional discrimination have critically endangered the Ainu way of life.

Ainu have pale skin, a robust frame, deep-set eyes, and thick wavy hair. Traditionally the men grew long beards while the women tattooed their mouths. Until the 1990s scientists speculated they were a long lost tribe of Caucasians but genetic testing has revealed they are closer to other East Asians, despite their physical differences.

Most Ainu men, like their Jomon ancestors, have haplogroup D in their Y chromosomal DNA, shared with Tibetans, Andaman Islanders and Okinawans. By contrast, roughly 10% of Japanese ancestry comes from the Jomon.

Ainu mitochondrial DNA suggests common ancestry with Okinawans and indigenous people of the Russian Far East. Their ancestors were Ice Age hunters from southern Siberia who deviated from their East Asian cousins millennia ago and crossed a land bridge to Japan. They likely developed their distinct appearance from centuries of isolation in a cold, wintry climate.

Today most Ainu look Japanese, their mixed ancestry the product 20^th century assimilation campaigns. An unknown number of Yamato – possibly up to 200,000 – have Ainu ancestry though many do not know it themselves. In the past, people concealed their heritage for fear of discrimination.

Traditionally the Ainu were hunter-gatherers. They hunted deer, foxes, seals, otters and other animals, fished salmon and grew vegetables and millet. One custom involved raising bears from cubs then, after a year, sacrificing and eating them in a public ritual. Bears were central to the Ainu’s animist faith. The Ainu believed spirits inhabited every aspect of the natural world, including animals, streams, mountains and trees, which were to be venerated and respected. The Ainu crafted clothing from furs, fishskin, cotton, bark and woven grass.

The Japanese began colonising Hokkaido in the 1300s. The wild frontier was appealing to restless Samurai and the fur trade was lucrative. The Ainu fought back in 1457, 1669 and 1789 but were defeated each time. Smallpox, tuberculosis and cholera decimated their population.

In 1868 the Meiji Regime formerly annexed Hokkaido, opening it to Japanese settlers, and started assimilating the Ainu. The 1899 ‘Hokkaido Aboriginal Protection Act’ forced Ainu to abandon hunting and fishing for agriculture and adopt Japanese customs and names. Speaking their native language and traditional practices like tattooing and animal sacrifice were banned. The law was not lifted until 1997.

The Ainu language has no relation to any other. Ainu means ‘human’ in their native tongue. Japanese assimilation campaigns were successful: out of the 20,000 Ainu today, only 15 still speak the language.

There has since been an effort to revitalize Ainu culture. Even so, the Japanese government did not recognise the Ainu as an ethnic minority until 1991 or an indigenous group until 2008. In February 2019 the Japanese government finally granted Ainu indigenous rights. The Russian government has yet to do so.

Sources: Akanainu, Akarenga, The Economist, Heritage of Japan, Japan Times, Minority Rights, Nature, Quartz, Tofoku, Washington Post

See Also:

• The Sentinelese
• Bears

Aum Shinrikyo

Aum Shinrikyo was the Japanese Doomsday Cult responsible for the 1995 Tokyo subway attacks. Cult members used sarin gas to kill thirteen people and injure a further 5,000 in Japan’s most deadly act of terrorism. Cult leader Shoko Asahara and six other members were hanged on the 6^th July 2018.

On the 20^th March 1995 during the morning rush hour five members of Aum Shinrikyo boarded Tokyo’s busiest commuter lines.  Each carried a spiked umbrella and two plastic bags full of 0.9 litres of liquid sarin. At coordinated stations, the cultists pierced the bags and got off the train to meet their getaway drivers.

Victims of the 1995 Tokyo subway attacks

Sarin is the most deadly nerve agent. Created by the Nazis, it causes a victim’s nervous system to destroy itself. Sarin is absorbed through the skin: effects include convulsions, paralysis, permanent brain damage and/or death. A pinhead is enough to kill an adult.

Shoko Asahara, a visually impaired acupuncturist, started meditation classes from his Tokyo apartment in 1984. He claimed to be able to levitate, and could help others achieve salvation by withdrawing from society and following his teachings. Like Charles Manson, Asahara was a New Age guru who manipulated others to evil. He would later declare himself the incarnation of Lord Shiva, the Buddha and Jesus Christ.

Aum Shinrikyo was officially founded in 1987, a year after Asahara found ‘enlightenment’ in the Himalayas. The cult’s name derives from the Hindu symbol of creation, Aum, and the Japanese word for ‘supreme truth’. Aum Shinrikyo combined Mahayana Buddhist teachings with Hinduism, Taoism, Christian eschatology and, to a lesser extent, the writings of Nostradamus and Isaac Asimov.

Asahara and his followers believed the Apocalypse would occur in 2000, after which the Third Buddhist Age of ‘Shoho’, when nirvana is attainable by all, would commence. Secretly, they believed it was their job to induce it.

In 1989 Aum Shinrikyo gained official recognition as a religious organisation. From their commune at the base of Mount Fuji, Aum exploited the spiritual void left by Japan’s obsession with work and materialism to proselytise disillusioned students and intellectuals. Asahara published several books and spoke at universities. At its peak, Aum had over 10,000 followers in Japan, and an estimated 30,000 in Russia. Many were graduates of Japan’s top universities, some of whom developed the chemical weapons used in 1995.

Few souls would survive the Apocalypse – only the members of Aum, and those they killed. Asahara’s disciples believed that by killing outsiders they would prevent them from attaining further bad karma, and therefore save their immortal souls. Everyone outside the cult was an enemy.

In 1989 Aum claimed its first victims; Tsutsumi Sakamoto, a lawyer investigating the cult, his wife and baby son.  Over the following years, they secretly amassed an arsenal of weapons, attempted to obtain anthrax and ebola samples and even a nuclear warhead. Chemical nerve agents proved more practical. In 1994, cultists used sarin gas to murder seven in the village of Matsumoto.

After the 1995 Tokyo Subway incident, Japanese police raided the Aum Shinrikyo commune. Inside they discovered stockpiles of LSD and other drugs, a Russian military helicopter and enough sarin to kill 4 million people.

Aum Shinrikyo members executed last Friday. Clockwise from top left:

• Shoko Asahara
• Tomomasa Nakagawa –  murdered Mr Sakamoto and his family
• Seiichi Endo – head scientist
• Masami Tsuchiya – chief chemist, developed Aum’s sarin supply
• Kiyohide Hayakawa – ‘construction minister’, strangled a dissident cult member in 1989
• Tomomitsu Niimi – ‘minister of internal affairs’, getaway driver
• Yoshihiro Inoue – ‘head of intelligence’ and mastermind of the 1995 subway attack

Nine others await execution.

In 2004 Asahara and his inner circle were convicted of a total of 27 counts of murder and placed on death row. The last culprit, a getaway driver, was arrested in 2012.

Aum Shinrikyo survived and renamed itself ‘Aleph’ in 2000. The group has ostensibly rejected violence, but remains under tight police supervision. It currently has 1650 members.

Sources: Apologetics Index, Associated Press, BBC, Council on Foreign Relations, Japan Times, Rationalwiki

John Oliver’s China Episode

Two weeks ago on HBO’s Last Week Tonight, British-American comedian John Oliver criticised Chinese government censorship and poked fun at leader Xi Jinping. In response China blocked the HBO network and all mention of John Oliver within its borders.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2014-) is an Emmy award winning satire show that explores current events with a liberal and comedic bent. It focuses mainly on US politics.

On the 17^th June, Oliver spent the episode’s first half discussing the narrative pushed by Chinese propaganda: the fact China is more prosperous than ever before and the idea that ’Uncle Xi’ is a benevolent ruler adored by his people. Oliver also showed a clip of the English language propaganda video for the Belt and Road Initiative, which he later parodied. The original is available on Youtube, a website ironically banned in China.

Internet content is tightly regulated in China, where freedom of speech is not permitted. More than any other authoritarian government, The Communist Party has the wealth and state capacity to enforce this effectively.

Oliver discussed:

• Xi Jinping’s removal of term limits
• Subsequent censorship of search terms including ‘my emperor’, and ‘personality cult’
• ‘Dystopian’ oppression of the Uighur minority
• China’s social credit system, which denies privileges like buying plane flights or real estate to ‘untrustworthy’ citizens
• The blocking of candle emojis following the death of Nobel winning activist Liu Xiabo

In 2013 Chinese dissenters started sharing memes comparing Xi with Winnie-the-Pooh. Authorities responded by blocking all mention of the fictional bear on the Chinese internet. Though noting the resemblance is not particularly strong, Oliver suggests this makes it all the more funny:

“Clamping down on Winnie-the-Pooh comparisons doesn’t exactly project strength. It suggests a weird insecurity.”

The comparisons were a running gag for the remainder of the episode.

Though the HBO network is not available on mainstream Chinese television, its website was accessible. Since then Chinese authorities have blocked the entire network and all mention of John Oliver, who has joined Liu Xiabo, Justin Beiber and Winnie-the-Pooh as figures deemed ‘harmful to national security’.

Given China’s economic leverage, today western governments rarely criticise its dubious human rights record. Free Tibet has been forgotten. What’s troublesome is that such censorship is slowly leaking beyond the Great Firewall. The FCC has already killed Net Neutrality in the USA and opened the door for corporate tampering. Less than a week ago Youtube quietly removed John Oliver’s China episode without comment.

Sources: BBC, Greatfire, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, New York Times, Variety 

See Also:

• Xi Jinping: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
• Mirror Link
• Belt and Road Propaganda Video

Taiwan

Taiwan is a disputed territory in the South China Sea. Whilst Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, functions as an independent nation-state with its own government, the People’s Republic of China considers it a renegade province rightfully theirs. Given Beijing’s greater strength and international clout, few countries recognise Taiwanese statehood. It is the world’s most populated non-UN member state.

Formerly known as Formosa, Taiwan is the ancestral homeland of the Austronesian people, a linguistic family which today dominates Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Polynesia and Madagascar. It is a land of fertile valleys, tropical jungles, dramatic elevation and picturesque mountains.

Starting with the Dutch and the Spanish in the 1620s, Taiwan witnessed a series of foreign rulers. In 1662 Koxinga, a Ming Dynasty loyalist, conquered the Dutch colonies and established the island’s first Chinese state. Twenty years later Koxinga’s kingdom acquiesced to the Qing, China’s new rulers. Slowly but surely, Han Chinese immigrants replaced the aboriginal tribes, who retreated to the island’s mountainous interior. Comparable to the displaced natives of Australia or the USA, today aborigines make only 2.3% of Taiwan’s population.

The Japanese ruled Taiwan from 1895 – 1945. They aggressively subdued the remaining aboriginal tribes and industrialised the island. Japanese rule was harsh and resented by Han Taiwanese and aborigines alike. Taiwan returned to China after WW2.

The new rulers were the Kuomintang, or Chinese Nationalist Party, who had overthrown the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and established the Republic of China (ROC). The ROC was plagued by unrest, however, and their hold on China tenuous. After the Japanese defeat in 1945 civil war resumed with Mao Zedong’s Communists. Despite American financial support the Nationalists, under generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek, lost the war. In 1949 the ROC’s leadership and two million nationalists fled to Taiwan.

Like Koxinga before him, Chiang dreamed of one day retaking the mainland. Taipei was established as the ROC’s ‘wartime capital’ and a Chinese identity asserted over a Taiwanese one.  Mao would have invaded Taiwan too was it not for US president Harry Truman who, in the context of the Korean War, signed a mutual defence pact with Taipei. Thus two rival governments prevailed, the communist Peoples Republic of China in the mainland, the nationalist Republic of China in Taiwan.

The Kuomintang ruled Taiwan as a dictatorship under martial law until 1987.  Despite brutal suppression of dissent, during the 1960s and 70s, the Taiwanese free-market economy boomed, ranking it one of ‘Four Asian Tigers’ alongside Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea. It became a global manufacturing hub.

Taiwan democratised in 1992. Politics today are dominated by the ‘Green’ and ‘Blue’ coalitions. Blue parties, like the Kuomintang, emphasise the Republic of China and maintaining the status quo while Green ones assert a distinct Taiwanese identity and seek formal independence from China.  This would, however, mean war. Beijing operates on the ‘One China Policy’ and denies Taiwan the right to secession. The incumbent Tsai Ing-Wen of the Democratic People’s Party is of the Green.

As both Beijing and Taipei claim to be China’s sole legitimate government, other nations can only recognise one or the other. The ROC held the Chinese seat on the United Nations until 1971 when President Nixon opened diplomatic relations with Beijing. Today only 19 governments, mainly poorer nations in Central America and the Pacific, recognise the Republic of China. Beijing is steadily isolating Taiwan diplomatically by buying off its allies. On April 30th 2018 the Dominican Republic switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing in exchange for 3.1 billion dollars in aid, with Burkina Faso following suit on May 24th. Beijing is currently enticing Haiti and Eswatini to do the same.

Now only the following 18 15 nations recognise Taiwan, most of which are too small to be shown:

1. Belize
2. El Salvador
3. Guatemala
4. Haiti
5. Honduras
6. Kiribati
7. Marshal Islands
8. Nauru
9. Nicaragua
10. Palau
11. Paraguay
12. Saint Kitts and Nevis
13. Saint Lucia
14. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
15. Solomon Islands
16. Eswatini
17. Tuvalu
18. Vatican City

The annexation of Taiwan by the Peoples Republic would be a critical blow to democracy.  Today Taiwan is a proudly democratic and progressive state, which allows freedom of thought, expression and speech unknown in mainland China. As of June 2018 Taiwan, Singapore, Burma and Nepal are the only countries in Asia ruled by females and Taiwan is the only state on the continent to recognise same-sex marriage. Whilst the People’s Republic flag in Taiwan might raise a few eyebrows, flying the ROC banner in the mainland would likely put you in jail.

Update 22/08/2018: El Salvador has cut ties with Taiwan, and now recognises the People’s Republic of China instead. It is the third country to do so this year.

Update 17/08/2019: The Solomon Islands cut ties with Taiwan.

Update 20/08/2019: Kirbati cuts ties with Taiwan.

See Also:

• Modern Kosovo
• Taiwanese Aborigines
  • Polynesian Migrations
• Taiwanese Negritos