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This article is about the people governed by the Republic of China. For the Chinese-language dialect known as Taiwanese, see Taiwanese (linguistics)


A girl from Taiwan.
A girl from Taiwan.

The Taiwanese people (Traditional Chinese: 臺灣人 also 台灣人; Simplified Chinese: 台湾人; pinyin: Táiwān rén Taiwanese: Tâi-oân-lâng) is a generic term used to identify the 23 million people, of four ethnic groups: Hoklo (70%), Hakka 15%, Mainlander (13%), and Taiwanese aborigines (2%), governed by the Republic of China (ROC) from that of the 1.3 billion people governed by the People's Republic of China (PRC). Another defintion refers to just the ethnic Hoklo and Hakka as native Taiwanese (本省人 běnshěng-rén; Home-province person). There are actually several other defintions of Taiwanese which centers around a complicated and at times politically charged identity issue.

Contents

[edit] Geography

The areas highlighted in green are administered by the ROC government based in Taipei, but claimed by China (PRC).
The areas highlighted in green are administered by the ROC government based in Taipei, but claimed by China (PRC).
Main article: Free Area of the Republic of China

Taiwan, also known historically as Formosa, is an island north of the Philippines and southeast of the Chinese mainland, constituting 99.5% of the area under the effective jurisdiction of the Republic of China. The island also happens to be home to 99% of the ROC population. Taiwan together with Penghu (Pescadores) are governed as Taiwan province while Kinmen (Quemoy) and Matsu located across the Taiwan Strait are governed as Fujian province where less than 1% of the ROC population reside.

[edit] Definitions

[edit] ROC citizens

Main article: Political status of the Republic of China

A person considered Taiwanese:

[edit] Ethnic definitions

Main article: Taiwan's identity crisis

The three prevalent variations in the definition of Taiwanese are:

  • Hoklo - the dominant ethnic group, from whom the Taiwanese identity and language are primarily attributed.
  • Hoklo and Hakka - as native Taiwanese, inhabiting Taiwan and Penghu prior to the arrival of the recent Mainlanders.
  • Hoklo, Hakka, Mainlander, Taiwanese aborigines - the modern generic term used to describe ROC citizens.

[edit] History

Main article: History of Taiwan

[edit] Aborigines

Map of aborigine distribution.
Map of aborigine distribution.
Main article: Taiwanese aborigines

The Taiwanese aborigines, who comprise some two dozen tribes are believed to be the original inhabitants of Taiwan, originating from the Asian continent some 8,000 years ago. Taiwan is believed to be the homeland of the Austronesian speaking peoples. The indigeneous peoples were the dominant population on the island prior to the influx of Hokkien and Hakka migrant workers from across the Taiwan Strait 400 years ago. The aborigines are categorized into two types: Lowland aborigines (平埔族 píngpǔ-zú) and Highland aborigines (高山族 gāoshān-zú). The lowland aborigines who live on the western half of Taiwan are not officially recognized by the ROC government. Today, the total population of aborigines number less than half a million, or 2% of the ROC population. This does not factor Taiwanese who share aborigine ancestry as intermarriages were not documented.

[edit] Hoklo

Main article: Hoklo people

The Hoklo communities in Taiwan originated from male laborers from Fujian recruited by the Dutch East India Company to work on rice and sugar plantations. Some married into lowland aborigine communities. There are fragmented populations of lowland aborigines who still acknowledge their identity and heritage throughout Taiwan. Others have assimilated to a degree where their descendants speak Taiwanese and identify with the Hoklo majority, and it is possible to find families where the older members still identify themselves as lowland aborigine, while the rest of the family may identify as Hoklo.

[edit] Hakka

Main article: Hakka

The Taiwanese Hakka communities, although arriving to Taiwan from eastern Guangdong (Canton) and the mountains of Fujian, have also likely mixed through intermarriage with lowland aborigines as well. Hakka family trees are known for recording only the patrilineal heritage. Also, during the process of intermarriage and assimilation, many of the lowland aborigines and their families took on the sinicized Hoklo and Hakka family names. Much of this happened in Taiwan prior to the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, so that by the time of the Japanese colonization, most of the population that the Japanese classified as "Chinese" Hoklo and "Chinese" Hakka were in truth already of mixed ancestry. Physical features of both Taiwanese aborigine and Chinese can be found amongst the Taiwanese mainstream today. It is also believed by many scholars that the Hakka of Taiwan are mainly the descendants of Hakka assimilated ethnic Shi people from the mountainous area between Fujian and Guangdong, with linguistic relations to Min nan speakers (Norman, 1988).

[edit] Mainlander

The Chinese Nationalists retreated to Taiwan with 1 million supporters.
The Chinese Nationalists retreated to Taiwan with 1 million supporters.
Main article: Mainlander

The Mainlanders are recent immigrants to Taiwan, who fled the Chinese mainland with the Kuomintang (KMT). In 1945, after the Empire of Japan's defeat in World War II, the KMT occupied Taiwan and Penghu and later brought two million refugees from across China after their defeat in the Chinese Civil War. The Taiwanese by this time had already been colonized by the Japanese Empire for 50 years (1895-1945) and adopted the Japanese identity since 1937. Having been oppressed first by the Japanese, they now faced a second oppression but this time by the Mainlanders. The KMT sought to reverse and destroy the effects of Japanese rule and imposed Mandarin as the lingua franca. Thus began the four decade long (1947-1987) martial law and harsh authoritarian rule. This included the 228 Incident which the KMT tried to suppress from history. As a result, most Taiwanese resent the Mainlanders and call them 外省人 (wàishěng-rén; External-province person). Since 1988, after the lifting of martial law and democratization of government, the Taiwanese were finally able to regain some freedoms such as speaking their own languages rather than the foreign-imposed national language. In 2000, a rival political party, the Democratic Progressive Party won the presidential elections, transferring power from the KMT for the first time in history. President Chen Shui-bian won a second term as president and has been vigorously dismantling the KMT government through the Taiwanese localization movement. Such a movement has angered both the KMT and Beijing, who view it as a strong move towards unilaterally changing the status quo.

See also: Taiwan's identity crisis

[edit] Genetic studies

The Hoklo and Hakka linguistic groups, which statistically make up the majority of Taiwan's population, can trace some of their historical cultural roots Minnan- and Hakka-speaking peoples come from what is now China, predominantly the southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian. Much of the original migrations from China were largely male so there was considerable intermarriage with local plains aboriginal groups and in many cases the offspring of mixed unions were designated Han, following the patrilineal preference, making the genetic make up of Taiwanese people difficult to determine.[1]. The lack of a definite genetic record of plains aborigines, or conclusive understanding of their proto-Austronesian roots, further complicates the use of genetic data (Blust,1988) A study of the depletion of Asian and Pacific Islanders demonstrates a noticeable difference between Han in China and on Taiwan (Stone, 2000; pp. 351-357). A Mahalanobis' generalized distance survey of 29 male groups categorized Taiwanese as a separate subgroup of Northern Asian different from Shanghai,Nanjing and Hangzhou, associating Taiwanese closer to groups from Hainan, Korea, Ainu and Atayal (Pietrusewsky,2000; pp. 400-409)

In addition, 14% of Taiwan's population are immigrants or descendants of immigrants who arrived near the end of the Chinese Civil War with the Kuomintang government. They are also referred to as "Mainlanders" (外省人; Waisheng ren; literally "external-province person"), and originate from all parts of China, both north and south, unlike the Hoklo and Hakka.

Dalu ren (大陸人) refers to residents of the People's Republic of China. This group excludes almost all native Taiwanese. It also excludes foreign born spouses from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines or spouses from non-Asian countries. The people supporting the independence of Taiwan would simply call these people "Chinese" (中國人).

The human leukocyte antigen typing study and mitochondrion DNA analysis performed in recent years show that more than 88% of the native Taiwanese population have some degree of aboriginal origin (Sim, 2003) http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2006/11/27/2003338134. Research conducted by Li Hui of the Life Sciences Institute at Shanghai Fudan University found that men from four Taiwanese aboriginal tribes (Amei, Atayal, Bunun, Paiwan) share common parts of the same Y-chromosome (No. 9, 10, 11, 12) with the Li people of Hainan and link them to a common ancestor, the Baiyue people (百越) who lived in Hemudu in eastern Zhejiang 7,000 years ago.[2] It is believed that a pre-Austronesian people immigrated to Taiwan some 12,000-8000 years ago and share a similarity with those that immigrated to Hainan, though it was not until a lengthy settlement on Taiwan that the people became Proto-Austronesians and the ancestors of the current ethnic groups of Austronesian speakers on Taiwan and other Pacific islands.

Both Chinese and Taiwanese nationalists have often tried to validate their political claims based on biology and implied ancestry. Despite the advancement of genetic research and diaspora studies of human populations around the globe, there is no evidence to suggest any correlation between genetic or biological similarities or differences, and political or national identities. Genetic studies have only concluded the greater similarity between all people.

[edit] Famous Taiwanese people

Main article: List of Taiwanese people

[edit] References

  1. ^ M. Lin (1998). The origin of Minnan & Hakka, the so-called "Taiwanese", inferred by HLA study. World United Formosans for Independence (WUFI).
  2. ^ DNA Analysis Reveals Taiwanese Have Ancestors on Mainland. People's Daily (December 14, 2001).

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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