Michael Stainton's The Politics Of Taiwan Aboriginal Origins

According to the paper The Politics of Taiwan Aboriginal Origins by Michael Stainton, debates about the origin of Taiwan aborigines were politically determined. Although most scholars reached consent that Taiwan aborigines are populated exclusively by Austronesians, heated debates are caused by one question: where they came from at the first place? This paper argued that this question was crucial because it was related to the nationalism ideology, which further related to the question towards the necessity of reunification of Taiwan and China. This paper did a great summary about several major theories about Taiwan aborigines’ origin, but it did not explain the reason of why these heated debates were so important for the national identity of Taiwanese, and how the Taiwan nationalism developed.
This paper did an excellent summary towards major theories about the origin of Taiwan aborigines, and the author clearly demonstrated that scholar …show more content…
Was Taiwan used to be a part of China? Was Taiwan culture originated from Chinese culture or as an original center for its unique culture? Again, the answers to these questions varied due to different political ideologies. Chinese nationalists advocated that Chinese and Taiwan aborigines shared a cultural and ethnical homology based on various ethnical and archaeological studies such as the physical similarities between Taiwanese aborigines and Pai Yueh people, and the discovery of ethnographic fossils which was Chinese origin. Unsurprisingly, this idea was criticized by other scholars who advocated the idea that Taiwan had its uniqueness and only had a limited connection with Chinese culture. All these debates were important for the future of Taiwan and whether Taiwan would became an independent state or need to be reunification with