Pingpu Legal Recognition Progress Sparks Debate Among Indigenous Groups

TaiwanPlus News

Taiwan's Pingpu peoples, plains Indigenous groups who have assimilated into the mainstream Han Chinese culture and are not officially recognized, may now apply to be identified as Indigenous under a new status law. While it is a huge leap in Pingpu recognition, many fear that it would deepen the divide between them and the 16 recognized Indigenous groups. Other groups also say the already scarce resources for them cannot stretch any further to include the Pingpu peoples’ needs.

Transcript

00:00We are going to sing a new song, Chiraya's new song, Chiraya's new song.

00:05Katomana.

00:12Uma Taravan is at the forefront of the fight for Chiraya Cultural Revival in Tainan in Taiwan's south.

00:20They're one of the largest Pimpu Plains indigenous groups in Taiwan,

00:24and her family has been fighting a decades-long battle for legal recognition.

00:29The Pingpu are lowland indigenous peoples who are gradually absorbed into Han culture,

00:34leading to a loss of their distinct identities, and they're not officially recognized as indigenous.

00:40But that may now change, after Taiwan passed a special act giving the Pingpu a legal definition

00:46and allowing individual groups to apply for recognition.

00:58The legal changes follow a landmark 2012-2022-2022-2022-2022-2022-2022-2022-2022.

01:28For the nearly one million Pingpu people, the ruling was a major step toward recognition.

01:45That's because they had assimilated into mainstream society,

01:49and colonial authorities had separated them from other indigenous groups

01:52that were able to maintain their culture and way of life.

01:55But Uma Taliban is worried that it could end up creating division among Pingpu peoples.

02:00For people's身份 and to decide on the national rule,

02:08this law was tied together.

02:10With this law, we call the Pingpu peasants population of the first,

02:18second, second, third, second of the group.

02:20Or we call the 17, fifth or eighth group.

02:25Legal recognition is about more than just having an official title.

02:45Under current laws, the 16 recognized indigenous groups are granted special rights,

02:50like the ability to hunt and own reserve land, and preferential treatment in college admissions.

02:56None of those benefits are included in the new law for Ping Poo peoples.

03:20They want to make the indigenous people not any影響, so they will do this.

03:31Of course, they will say that they are good for Ping Poo peoples,

03:34but I think that this is why they want to be the first and foremost順序 of the Ping Poo.

03:44Extending those benefits to the PINPU would mean

03:47amending more than 300 articles in the Indigenous People's Basic Law,

03:52a move that could force the more than 600,000 recognized Indigenous people

03:56to share already limited resources.

04:14The Council of Indigenous People says

04:29distributing benefits and resources should focus on

04:33what each Indigenous group actually needs.

04:44And those questions about what each group needs today

04:59are deeply tied to how different groups were impacted

05:02throughout Taiwan's colonial history.

05:14The new law has given the legislature three years

05:24to grant to PINPU the resources they need,

05:27a deadline that may force lawmakers to speed up the process.

05:31Regardless of what happens next,

05:33the PINPU people still have a long road ahead of them

05:35to achieve full recognition.

05:38Yisun Chen and Irene Lin for Taiwan Plus.

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