Outside influence

6.1.i.. The Qing Empire (1644 – 1912)

Taiwan was initially incorporated into the Qing Empire by strategic concerns to eliminate threats along the peripheries, with the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1661 – 1722) adopting Jesuit cartographic knowledge and to-scale mapping to legitimize the Empire’s territorial shape and to “carve out the limits of their empire in a world whose dimensions had become finite.”³⁰⁷ Maintaining security on the island and ensuring rebel bases against the Qing government cannot be formed was a paramount principle that shaped policy-making vis-à-vis Taiwan. To that end, various edicts were issued to

‘eradicate disturbance’ and ‘maintain peace,’ especially under the Qianlong Emperor’s reign (r. 1735 – 1796). These included regulations to prevent law development, to have land that was encroached upon returned to the indigenes, and to penalize settlers who purchased indigenous land.^308,309 On the government level, all those who submitted to the Emperor’s rule were regarded as his ‘children,’ a principle that seemed to include both the indigenous people (tufan土番) as well as the subjects (renmin人民) i.e. the settlers.³¹⁰ There did, however, exist a categorization of indigenous people within two

307 Laura Hostetler, 2000, ‘Qing Connections to the Early Modern World: Ethnography and cartography in eighteenth-century China,’ Modern Asian Studies 34:3, July 2000, p. 653.

308 Lian Heng 连横, 1918, 台湾通史, Comprehensive History of Taiwan, (Taiwan Yinhang, Taiwan Wenxian Congkan 128, 1962) p. 66.

309清高宗实录选辑Selected Veritable Records of the Qianlong Emperor Selected Veritable Records of the Qianlong Emperor (Taiwan Yinhang, Taiwan (Taiwan Yinhang, Taiwan Wenxian Congkan 186, 1964) 30 (‘Veritable Records of Qianlong’), p. 1, 9, 118.

310 Shi Lang, ‘A Memorial Requesting for Annexation of Taiwan’, recorded in Gao Gongqian 高拱乾 (1696) 台湾府 志Gazetteer of Taiwan Prefecture (Taiwan Yinhang, Taiwan Wenxian Congkan 65, 1960), p. 232.

broad distinctions, shufan 熟 番 (‘cooked’ aborigines) and shengfan 生 番 (‘raw’

aborigines):

The ‘cooked’ aborigines were those who adopted and were acculturated to Han culture, submitted to the Qing Government, and paid taxes. In contrast, the so-called ‘raw’ aborigines retained their traditional way of life and did not submit to the Qing Government. Later, some ‘raw’ aborigines submitted to the Qing Government, and were called guihua shengfan ^{归 化 生 番} (submitted ‘raw’

aborigines). (…) [In the late Kangxi reign] boundaries markers were erected to separate the ‘raw’ aboriginal territory from the Qing-controlled territory. The boundaries were reinforced during the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns.³¹¹

Although security concerns shaped the general national policy vis-à-vis Taiwan, with the maintenance of peace with the indigenes an extension of that principle, the realities portrayed a different picture. At the local level, Han settlers imposed much pressure on the indigenes, who little by little lost their traditional lands to the new settlers.³¹² The growth of the Han population and an increasingly depletion of the island’s natural resources inescapably forced changes in the culture of the indigenous peoples, whose lifestyles were intricately linked with the environment; deforestation to make way for arable land and unsustainable hunting of the deer population are a case in point.³¹³

Overall, exploitation of natural resources, land encroachment, sinicization and modernization projects, abuse of indigenes by government officials, as well as rebellions and military campaigns all challenged and displaced the indigenes as Taiwan’s dominant civilization and irrevocably brought about change to their traditional lifestyles and cultures.

6.1.b. Japanese Regime (1895 – 1945)

The traditional structures of indigenous life were further overhauled under Japanese colonization. Taiwan was ceded by the Qing Empire to Japan on April 17, 1897, under the Treaty of Shimonoseki as a result of the first Sino-Japanese War. With the aim to

311 Ruiping Ye, 2013, ‘Colonisation Without Exploitation: The Qing Policies in Taiwan during the High Qing Period (1684−1795),’ Journal of the Australasian Law Teachers Association 8, pp. 8-9.

Accessed at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/JlALawTA/2013/8.html.

312 Ibid, p. 10.

313 Denny Roy, 2003, Taiwan: A Political History, Cornell University, NY: Cornell University Press, p.

25.

transform Taiwan into a model colony, Japan dedicated substantial funds and manpower to its goal to industrialize the island.³¹⁴ Road-building programs and other modernization projects took place on traditional indigenous peoples’ territory, engendering conflict and anti-Japanese uprisings (such as the Musha incident on October 27, 1930, which resulted in hundreds of deaths on both the Japanese and Seediq indigenous side, yet ended with the latter’s defeat) and subsequent ‘pacification’

missions.³¹⁵ Beyond altering the face of Taiwan through development in infrastructure – which forced certain indigenes to resettle, especially as deforestation destroyed the natural resources they depended upon – colonial rule emphasized cultural assimilation.

For instance, Japanese was imposed as the official language, further cemented through the national education system; indigenes were encouraged to adopt Japan’s state religion, Shinto, with shrines erected across the island; incorporating them into the Japanese army and compelling residents to be naturalized, including adopting Japanese names and surnames.³¹⁶ Head hunting practices also gradually ceased on the backdrop of Japanese encroachment into traditional lands and deeper submission to colonial authority.³¹⁷ Finally, the Japanese changed the previous Qing regime’s categorization of the indigenous peoples, adopting instead a classification of nine tribes whilst ignoring the so-called ‘raw’ aborigines who were not counted for government control.³¹⁸ This categorization remained until recently.

Although the colonisation period undermined local autonomy and incorporated the indigenes into the Japanese political orb, it also commenced a period of research into the indigenous cultures and languages. The name ‘Yami’ was in fact first ascribed to the inhabitants of Orchid Island by the Japanese enthologist Torii Ryūzō and used in various official documents and academic periodicals.³¹⁹ Today, ‘Yami’ is still

314 Emmanuel Pastreich, 2005, “Sovereignty, Wealth, Culture and Technology: Mainland China and Taiwan Grapple with The Parameters of ‘Nation State’ in the 21^st Century,” HAOL 7, Spring 2005, p.

59.

315 Leo Ching, 2000, ‘Savage Construction and Civility Making: The Musha Incident and Aboriginal Representations in Colonial Taiwan,’ positions 8:3, winter 2000, p. 797.

316 Ralph L. Bayrer, 2009, Free People, Free Markets: Their Evolutionary Origins. Washington, DC:

New Academia Publishing, LLC. p. 305.

317 Huang 2015:144.

318 Shigeru Tsuchida, 2009, ‘Japanese Contribution to the Linguistic Studies of the Formosan Indigenous Languages,’ Austronesian Taiwan: Linguistics, History, Ethnology, Prehistory, ed. David Blundell, revised edition, Taipei: Shung Ye Museum & Berkeley: Phoebe A. Hearst Museum, University of California, p. 72.

319 ‘Tao,’ Digital Museum of Taiwan Indigenous Peoples. Accessed 1 March 2017.

http://www.dmtip.gov.tw/Eng/Tao.htm

frequently used interchangeably with ‘Tao’, meaning ‘human’ or ‘we are the people,’

though ‘Yami’ should be regarded more in terms of officially designated language and culture rather than name. Orchid Island was declared a research area and outsiders were prohibited from entering or cultivating land there, thus permitting the Tao to conserve their way of life. Overall, academic research and archaeological findings during the Japanese occupation are regarded as the basis for post-1945 scholars into indigenous cultures and ethnicities.

6.1.c. KMT rule before the lifting of martial law (1945-1987)

Under the authoritarian rule of the KMT, the indigenous people were “under a control as strict as, if not worse, than that during the Japanese occupation. What had changed was only the rhetoric of suppression.”³²⁰ For instance, forced resettlement to urban areas under the guise of creating a ‘mountain peoples reserve district’ (under control of the Mountain Administration Unit) and nationalization of the forest destroyed the mountain-dwelling indigenes’ way of life and culture. The once-self-governing indigenous population had no access to their natural resources; 87 percent of the forest was declared state property and rapid, unmonitored deforestation took place by Han merchants under the protection of KMT officials.³²¹ The mines underground were similarly controlled solely by the ruling regime and the traditional environment of the indigenous was exploited for capitalist interests. Even today, indigenes need to apply for a special permit to return to their traditional lands.

Another case portraying the authoritarian regime’s attitude towards the indigenous population is the nuclear waste controversy on Orchid Island. In 1982, while Taiwan was still under martial law, the government created a nuclear waste repository on the coast of Orchid Island under the banner of creating a fish cannery. The fish cannery was said to be built with its own port facilities and would create job opportunities for the islanders.³²² Another source states that the pier – which turned out to be the landing site for nuclear waste disposal – was said to be a military harbor. What is more, none of the Tao were informed of the government’s real intentions, especially

320 Chiu 1989:146.

321 Ibid.

322 Linda Gail Arrigo et al., 2002, ‘A Minority within a Minority: Cultural Survival on Taiwan’s Orchid Island,’ Cultural Survival, June 2002. Accessed 2 March 2017.

https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/minority-within-minority-cultural-survival-taiwans-orchid

as their “village chief [at that time] could not even understand Chinese.”³²³ Indeed, a campaigner at Greenpeace International in Asia said that this method of locating hazardous waste dumps “in far-off islands and isolated communities (…) where the local governments can be bought off” is not uncommon, with Japanese and South Korean sparsely populated communities in isolated regions saddled with the same sort of problem.³²⁴ Protests aimed at stopping this dumping next to their yam fields and burial grounds have been well-publicized by the liberalized media, but without change in governmental policy. Since its completion, the storage facility on the island received 98,700 barrels of nuclear waste from the nation’s three operational NPPs,³²⁵ with the local community arguing that the waste material is radioactive and has poisoned the coastal fish and the people eating them. More than three decades and the lifting of martial law still have not settled this matter, deepening the mistrust between the Tao people and the Taiwanese government and hindering any chance at future collaboration.

6.1.d. Democratization of Taiwan (1987 – present)

As previously mentioned, the 1980s were a transformative decade, with environmental, indigenous, and women’s rights movements spearheading the societal uprising.

However, a platform at the national level dedicated to helping indigenous peoples did not emerge until 1996 with the establishment of the Council of Aboriginal Affairs. In 2002, it was renamed to the current Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) and it remains the primary mechanism through which indigenous peoples voice their concerns.

The aim of the CIP is to help the indigenes reclaim their identity and recover their rights to the land and the sea. This land dispute is an on-going process in a twofold manner: firstly, the national land act divides the land into two categories: private and public. This causes concern for indigenous people who govern the land according to their traditional institutions and leaders, for state- and private-owned land are not concepts that are part of their culture. For instance, the Tao on Orchid Island are divided into six tribes, each with their own leader and land which is generally for common

323 I-Fan Lin, 2011, ‘Taiwan: Nuclear Waste on Orchid Island,’ Global Voices, 31 March 2011.

Accessed 15 May 2017. https://globalvoices.org/2011/03/31/taiwan-nuclear-waste-on-orchid-island/

324 Ralph Jennings, 2007, ‘Nuclear dump to leave Taiwan tropical isle,’ Reuters, 28 May 2007.

Accessed 15 May 2017. http://www.reuters.com/article/environment-taiwan-waste-dc-idUSTP30244720070529

325 Loa lok-sin, 2012, ‘Tao protest against nuclear facility,’ Taipei Times, 21 Feb. 2012. Accessed 2 March 2017. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2012/02/21/2003525985/1

usage. However, an influx of some mainland Taiwanese peoples onto the island and subsequent building of hotels and restaurants on the coast or creating private lands, although considered legal by the larger political regime, go against the indigenes’

traditional division and understanding of land. What is more, these ‘outsiders’ and their activities neglect the traditional access and harvesting rules and worsen the sustainability of a given resource. In this case, untreated discharge and waste from such establishments is a direct threat to the integrity of the coastal waters.³²⁶

Secondly, in February this year, under the Indigenous Peoples Basic Law, the CIP issued the Regulations for Delimiting Indigenous and Tribal Range Land;³²⁷ academics, indigenous communities, and governmental officials are collaborating to delineate traditional indigenous lands. According to the CIP’s official press release, the regulation is “a milestone on the pathway of realizing indigenous land justice.”³²⁸ Yet, one problem that emerges is that the delineation of traditional lands will only apply to public lands, excluding private lands. Activists to include private lands in the regulation argue that they would still be under the ownership of the holder, just within traditional indigenous territories, thus returning sovereignty to the indigenes.³²⁹

Overall, due to a long period of external influences, the indigenous “voices have been overwhelmed, their names have been stolen, co-opted under layers and layers of historical accounts in alien languages.”³³⁰ They have learned the national language and culture “at the expense of our own.”³³¹ Yet, the CIP strives to reassert the environmental wisdom and TEK and put it back into the education system.³³² The Amis people, for instance, are working to reclaim and retain their traditional knowledge of coastal landscapes and oceanic culture by creating model prototypes of the coastal scenery in Dulan and including the names of the rocks along the shore and reef, names which commemorate the dead, marine knowledge, and historical landscape.³³³

326 Appendix 3 (Interview with Dr. Lamuran).

327 ‘The Indigenous Peoples Basic Law.’ Accessed 30 May 2017.

http://law.apc.gov.tw/EngLawContent.aspx?Type=E&id=8

328 Mata Taiwan, translated by Kimberly Lee. 2017. ‘What is Problematic About the Indigenous Traditional Lands Regulations,’ Katagalan Media, 9 March 2017. Accessed 30 May 2017.

http://www.ketagalanmedia.com/2017/03/09/25973/

329 Ibid.

330 Chiu 1989:149.

331 Appendix 3 (Interview with CIP).

332 Ibid.

333 Appendix 3 (Interview with Dr. Kuan).

The indigenous people are vital stakeholders within environmental conservation and management. They are the ones with the longest and most intimate relations with the ecosystem of the island, both land- and sea-based, and have an ‘inherent right’ to maintain access to resources on traditional territories that were established before the formation of modern statehood.³³⁴ Yet, conflicts with the government over land disputes and nuclear waste contamination continue to deepen the chasm of mistrust between the two. Other problems emerge that hinder collaboration, too, such as a lack of communication and prevalent misunderstandings on the backdrop of difficult legal terms and administrative language that is not fully comprehended or required at the local level.³³⁵ Although the CIP has been technically established as a mediator, it has been accused of inefficiency and lacking ‘real’ power at the national level. This situation is made all the more challenging given that, unlike in Palau, Fiji or Guam, the indigenous peoples are not the majority of the population, or even close – constituting just 2.3 percent of the total. Given all this, there needs to be a re-widening of perspectives, with land not just treated as a battle over ownership, but an institutional arrangement that can be accessed and shared.³³⁶

As can be observed, the indigenous people of Taiwan have a rich and widespread ancestry in marine traditions, with a strong heritage linked to the sea and its resources. Although their cultural customs have faced challenges under colonialist and authoritarian regimes, a reinvigoration of traditional ecological knowledge, including navigation practices, would provide a strong foundation upon which local self-governance of resources may be built.

The next section concentrates on the Tao on Orchid Island, the most prominent traditionally marine indigenous group of Taiwan. The Tao traditional marine lifestyle and cultural heritage will be explored, including the challenges and opportunities to create local self-governing institutions to manage coastal resources and protect the coral reef environment.