Taiwanese, Hakka ethnic roots may not be in N China

Are Taiwanese and Hakka ethnic Han Chinese? The answer could be no. New research about the origins of Hakka people and those from southern Fujian shows that this widely held belief could be false.

Lin Ma-li (林媽利), an internationally renowned expert in blood research working at Mackay Memorial Hospital, released a report this weekend entitled Inferring the origin of southern Fujianese and Hakka from the Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA). HLA is considered to be the strongest index of race genetics.

Lin said she found that the HLA of most Taiwanese matches the genetic patterns of the ancient Yueh (越), who lived along the southeastern coast of China.

It is commonly believed, based on historical family records, that Taiwanese are descendents of Han Chinese ethnic groups. Family records have led some to believe that their Han ancestors fled from northern China to the southeastern coast to escape attack from the Xiongnu (匈奴) or Huns. The Huns, a Turkish-speaking nomadic tribe, attacked the northern capitals of the Chin Dynasty (晉朝) during the Western Chin period (265-317 AD).

"After complicated modifications over the past thousands of years, Taiwanese have still kept the complete gene of the ancient Yueh," Lin said.

The Yueh are considered to be from the southeastern coast of China, including Zhejiang (浙江), Fujian (福建), Guangdong (廣東) and Guangxi (廣西) provinces. The area, named "Bai Yueh" (百越), was quite multicultural before the Han dynasty. Lin thinks that the Hans overran the Yueh when they migrated to the southeastern coast during the wars.

Han xenophobia, and their regard of all other races as barbarian tribes, could also account for the lack of documents about the Yueh in Chinese history.

This viewpoint is actually not new to anthropologists.

According to a study by Chang Kuang-zi (張光直), published in 1987 in Anthropology magazine in China, Taiwanese are Austronesian (南島語系) from the southeastern coast of China and are considered to be related to the ancient southern Yueh (南越).

However, an anthropologist from Qinghua University (清華大學), Lee Kuan-di (李匡悌), questioned how the study defined Taiwanese and Fujianese.

"How the study defines Taiwanese would make the result different. Taiwanese ancestors came to Taiwan at different times. Don't forget that the Dutch and Spanish stayed in Taiwan for a couple of decades. Did the study take this into account?" Lee asked.