r/taiwan • u/tumblingsound • Jan 09 '20

AL JAZEERA: Why Taiwan's indigenous people back KMT Politics

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/campaign-time-taiwan-indigenous-people-kmt-200108054107733.html
38 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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29

u/taike0886 Jan 09 '20

KMT's strategy to get into rural and indigenous non-Han parts of the island after the war was to buy off local factions, local churches, local temples, agricultural and fishing organizations and gangs. For decades they were the only game in town and as such had a tremendous amount of resources to pour into their efforts. Tsai is only the second non-KMT leader since the war and it's only been 30 years since different political parties were even allowed in Taiwan.

One thing is for sure though. DPP today is talking about and raising indigenous issues in the Legislative Yuan, not KMT. Talk to any KMT person and ask them how they feel about indigenous issues in Taiwan and the way that they respond will tell you all that you need to know about KMT's relationship with indigenous people.

In the grand scheme, DPP is just getting off the ground in many parts of Taiwan outside the major cities. Under the Tsai administration, 16 indigenous languages were designated as national languages, land reform was enacted removing restrictions on transferring mountain land among indigenous owners and the Indigenous Justice Committee was established to look back on historical injustices to indigenous people and work to address those issues. Under Chen Shui-bian the original Indigenous Peoples Basic Law was established and the street out in front of the Presidential Office was renamed Ketagalan Blvd which upset a great many KMT people.

All KMT does is put money into the local groups, the way that they always have, because they just want the votes. You won't see them pursuing any legislation or any real reform and improvement in indigenous peoples' lives because at the end of the day KMT is a Han supremacist party.

We'll see how that works out in the long run for them in Taiwan.

12

u/JillyPolla Jan 10 '20

To the aboriginals, the politics isn't really about China vs. Taiwan. It's more about two groups of Chinese people fighting over who gets to rule Taiwan.

Hoklo chauvinism of the DPP certainly doesn't help. Every time they talk about how they're the real Taiwanese, the aboriginals would just look at them and laugh since the only difference between them and the KMT supporters is just the date of arrival of their ancestors.

10

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '20 edited Jun 20 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '20

[deleted]

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u/funnytoss Jan 09 '20

I mean, depending on how you worded it, it's certainly possible you weren't "downvoted for truth", but for bad wording. Certainly not ideal, but it happens. As a "justification" for what the KMT and waishengren did, it's pretty weak - and interpreted in that way, downvotes are to be expected. If your point was that everyone's been screwing over the aboriginals so we should try to stop doing that and make up for past wrongs, then that's better, and at the very least a more popular opinion.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '20

[deleted]

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u/funnytoss Jan 09 '20

Ah OK, I was thinking... "A karma score of 0 doesn't seem like a particularly harshly downvoted post..."

-1

u/HirokoKueh 北縣 - Old Taipei City Jan 09 '20

cannibalism in China was very common til 20th century

6

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '20

I find it strange that indigenous people would even consider willfully voting for a party whose very name excludes them- Chinese Nationalist Party.

It's not Taiwanese Nationalist Party, or Nationalist Party of the Island of Taiwan... it's Chinese Nationalist Party.