Siraya Groups Take Stand Against KMT Effort to Deny Indigenous Recognition to Pingpu Groups

Written by Brian Hioe.

Image credit: Toushe Pingpu Cultural Park by lienyuan lee/ WikiCommons, license: CC BY 3.0.

Siraya civil society groups took a stand against a move from the KMT to create a new legal category called “Pingpu Indigenous” earlier this month, holding a press conference on the matter. The proposal, which originates from KMT legislator Sra Kacaw, who is Amis, would be a means of denying Siraya recognition as Indigenous.

The Siraya are the largest of Taiwan’s Pingpu groups, which include the Kavalan, Ketagalan, Taokas, Pazeh, Papora, Babuza, Hoanya, and Makatau. Groups currently recognized as Indigenous are categorized as either Highland Indigenous or Plains Indigenous, and include the Amis, Atayal, Bunun, Hla’alua, Paiwan, Pinuyumayan, Rukai, Saisiyat, Yami, Thao, Truku, Tsou, Kanakanavu, Kavalan, Sakizaya, and Sediq. Before the ruling, the Kavalan were the only Pingpu group that was legally recognized as Indigenous, though this only applied to individuals who registered as Indigenous within a certain timeframe and their descendants.

Generally speaking, apart from other legal specifications, qualification as Indigenous applies to individuals who registered as Indigenous in 1956, 1957, 1959, or 1963, and their descendants. Whether one is considered “Plains Indigenous” or “Mountains Indigenous” is based on how one’s ancestors were registered in the past, rather than where one currently lives.

The estimated number of Pingpu people is unclear, though some counts have the number at 980,000, which is around 4% of the Taiwanese population. The Siraya have often fronted lawsuits for Pingpu recognition due to being the largest Pingpu group without recognition. The Kavalan are a Pingpu group with recognition as Indigenous, but this only applies to individuals who registered within a specific timeframe.

In 2022, the Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the recognition of the Siraya and other Pingpu groups as “Indigenous.” This reversed a previous ruling by the Taipei High Administrative Court in 2016 against Pingpu recognition and was a rare ruling by the Constitutional Court in which all 15 Grand Justices voted unanimously. The Constitutional Court ruling mandated that new laws needed to be drafted within three years to allow for Siraya and Pingpu recognition, changing the Status Act for Indigenous Peoples. This is the context in which Sra Kacaw’s proposal was made, in order to satisfy this requirement.

After the 2022 ruling, Taiwan saw more groups seek recognition, as with an application for recognition by the Pazeh people in 2024. The Tsai administration made promises to recognize Pingpu groups in 2016, when the Tsai administration made an apology to Taiwanese Indigenous on behalf of the ROC government.

The Siraya groups that have taken a stance against Sra Kacaw’s proposal were backed by the Tainan city government. Tainan is where many Siraya reside and is DPP-controlled. At the same time, one previously saw attempts by the DPP-controlled Council of Indigenous Peoples to carry out a similar move to deny recognition to Pingpu by creating a similar “Pingpu Indigenous” category that would still not be full recognition as Indigenous. Among those to take a stand against Pingpu recognition were Icyang Parod, the head of the Council of Indigenous Peoples, and then-Presidential Office spokesperson Kolas Yotaka.

Pingpu groups have historically been denied recognition as Indigenous with the claim that they were more sinicized than other Indigenous groups in the process of colonization. An undertext of pushback against Pingpu recognition is fears that expanding Indigenous status would lead to state resources for Indigenous being further diluted.

Indeed, the question of resources allocated to Indigenous peoples has long been thorny terrain for Indigenous communities to navigate. This includes, for example, Indigenous language learning requirements as a precondition for preferential admissions treatment, as well as other resources. Moreover, there have been concerns about individuals with unverified backgrounds being able to claim Indigenous status through an expansion of the criteria for legally qualifying as Indigenous. Such concerns also led to pushback against calls for recognition of mixed-race Indigenous.

Younger Indigenous activists, such as Savungaz Valincinan and the Indigenous Youth Front, have more commonly taken a stance more favorable to Pingpu recognition–putting them at odds with Icyang Parod, other Tsai administration-affiliated Indigenous politicians, as well as the KMT. Prominent Indigenous public intellectuals such as Awi Mona and Bavaragh Dagalomai have also taken a stance against the denial of recognition for Pingpu peoples, as has the Control Yuan’s National Human Rights Commission.

Pingpu groups have pointed to the history of activism calling for recognition since 1990, cultural revitalization efforts, such as the establishment of language schools. Pingpu groups have argued that denying Pingpu recognition as Indigenous continues how Pingpu groups have been deprived of their names and recognition by colonial regimes for centuries.

It is to be expected that there will be contention ahead of the October 2025 deadline set by the Constitutional Court in 2022. But one notes that the debate about Pingpu recognition now takes place in the changed political context after the KMT retook the majority in the Legislative Yuan and acted to defund the Council of Indigenous Peoples–a move fronted by KMT Indigenous legislators. What comes, as well as whether the changed political environment influences discourse around Pingpu recognition, remains to be seen.

This article is republished from New Bloom.