The Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) is considering granting official recognition to Pingpu Aborigines, but by creating a separate category for them to appease opposition from officially recognized Aborigine tribes. Some Pingpu activists have already voiced opposition to the idea.
The Pingpus are Aborigines who once inhabited most of the flat land around the country. Since the arrival of large numbers of Han Chinese immigrants four centuries ago, many Pingpus gradually adopted Han culture and languages.
Although many Pingpus kept official recognition of their ethnic status until the end of World War II, many of them lost it in the 1950s because they failed to register as Pingpu with the newly arrived Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.
In recent years Pingpu activists have been fighting to gain official recognition. However, their campaign has sparked fear from other Aborigines that Pingpus might take away some of the limited resources allocated to them.
While former council head Chang Jen-hsiang (章仁香) took a hard line stance on the issue, Council of Indigenous Peoples Minister Sun Ta-chuan (孫大川) has shown some support for the campaign and resumed a special panel on Pingpu issues that was created under the Democratic Progressive Party government and suspended by Chang.
“There are two policy options for granting official recognition to Pingpu Aborigines — the first is to consider them as Plains Aborigines; second, create a separate category of ‘Pingpu Aborigines’ for them,” Council of Indigenous Peoples Deputy Minister Mayaw Dongi told reporters after a meeting with Pingpu activists.
The delegation brought applications from 270 Siraya Aborigines in Tainan County asking for recognition of their ethnic status.
By law, Aborigines are labeled as “Mountains Aborigines” and “Plains Aborigines” based on an archaic system implemented during the Qing dynasty in China and used by the Japanese colonial government.
“I think option one [labeling Pingpus as Plains Aborigines] is more complicated and more difficult because it could impact the resources of the nation’s 240,000 Plains Aborigines,” Mayaw said. “Therefore, creating a separate category for the Pingpus would make more sense, and we would be happy to see it come true.”
Saying that nothing has been decided, Mayaw said laws relating to Aboriginal status would have to be revised before a separate Pingpu category could be created.
Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智) and Siraya Culture Association chairwoman Uma Talavan, who attended the meeting, were opposed to the idea.
“Article Eight of the Aboriginal Identity Act [原住民身分法] stipulates that Aborigines who failed to obtain official Aboriginal status due to different reasons may be granted recognition right away if they can provide proof of their ethnic identity,” Su said. “More than 1,500 Sirayas in Tainan County have provided copies of their household registration records from the Japanese colonial period with notes on their ethnic status. Why can’t they be recognized right away?”
Talavan said she was very disappointed the council rejected their request for official recognition, and said they would file an administrative lawsuit against it.
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