Taiwan Central Discourse: China's Fabricated Indigenous Origin Narrative

In a bid to strengthen its expansionist dreams, the People's Republic of China (PRC) held a military parade and, in a move to further its narrative, opened a museum dedicated to Austronesian peoples. The museum, located on Pingtan Island, has been named one of the top 10 archaeological sites in the PRC by the English-language news channel of state-run China Global Television Network (CGTN).

The museum's opening was met with a blizzard of articles and commentaries in the media, with some questioning the authenticity of the PRC's claims. Critics argue that the PRC is exploiting, reconstructing, and creating fantasy history to support its expansionist dreams.

The museum features artifacts from the Keqiutou site, one of the earliest Neolithic shell midden sites discovered along the coastal areas of Fujian. The PRC claims that the artifacts at Keqiutou are similar to those found at the Dapenkeng ruins in Taiwan and are believed to be the home of the ancestors of the Austronesians. However, archaeologists such as Fang Hui are involved in further investigations at the Keqiutou site to clarify the relationships between Taiwan and mainland China.

Roger Blench has argued extensively that the Austronesians in Taiwan are a mixed group, the result of multiple migrations from along the coast of the Asian mainland. DNA studies indicate that some indigenous Taiwan groups are probably back-migrated from the Philippines, casting doubt on the PRC's claims of ancestral links.

The relationship between the Pingtan site and Taiwan's Austronesian peoples remains a matter of conjecture, as scholars have yet to identify any ancestral culture for Taiwan's Austronesian peoples in China. The claim that Taiwan was returned to China at the end of World War II is also false, according to many historians.

Tsang Cheng-hwa, director of the Institute of Anthropology at Tsing Hua University, commented that the museum could promote scholarly exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. However, the museum's use of the term "family" to describe Austronesian peoples tracks the PRC's propaganda line that Taiwanese and Chinese are one "family," a claim that is not universally accepted.

Zhou Zhenyu, director of the Human Origins and Evolution Research Center at the Institute of Archaeology of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, stated that future archaeological work will be conducted across the entire southeastern coastal region to promote research and exploration on a broader scale. This work may help to shed light on the origins of the sites on the mainland of Asia that may be related to Taiwan, suggesting they are imports from elsewhere.

A jawbone found in the Taiwan Strait has been identified as Denisovan, a wide-ranging modern human group that left genetic markers from Siberia through Laos down to Australia. This discovery further complicates the PRC's claims of ancestral links between Fujian and Taiwan.

The great age of sites in the Philippines, on the island of Sulawesi and elsewhere in southeast Asia show that people of the genus Homo were crossing water and building communities thousands of years before the first Austronesians saw the Taiwan coast. These findings challenge the PRC's narrative about alleged links between ancient Fujian and Taiwan.

In conclusion, while the PRC's museum dedicated to Austronesian peoples and its claims of ancestral links to Taiwan may further its propaganda, the evidence suggests a more complex and nuanced history. The truth about the origins of the Austronesians and their relationship to Taiwan and mainland China remains to be uncovered through further archaeological research.