Wang made the remark at a seminar on human rights protection hosted by the Control Yuan. He was speaking about how the Control Yuan can help to protect Aboriginal rights.So, according to the Control Yuan President and the Minister of Council of Indigenous Peoples, Aborigines are not as smart as 'Han' (itself a conflationary smudge of an ethnic group that is supposed to cover all peoples in Taiwan except the aborigines) and Han are, by implication, less honest and less trusting than Aborigines.
He started by accusing the government of not doing enough to enhance Aboriginal rights, and said the Control Yuan would take punitive steps against government agencies that do not work hard enough to improve Aboriginal rights.
However, when discussing why Aborigines are in a disadvantaged position in local society, Wang said part of the reason was because Han people could easily outsmart Aborigines.
Council of Indigenous Peoples Minister Sun Ta-chuan (孫大川), who was present at the conference, defended Wang’s statement.
“If you put what he [Wang] said in context, he actually meant that the Aborigines are more trusting and more honest, so Aborigines are more likely to be deceived by Han people,” Sun said. “I think that’s quite true, according to my own experience.”
To my mind this is a discriminatory, arrogant, racist and utterly false positing of very crude and dangerous stereotypes.
1. Not all people except Aborigines in Taiwan are 'Han'.
2. Please define 'Han' and how the meaning and content of it have changed over thousands of years. (Melissa Brown has done good work in this area in her book 'Is Taiwan Chinese?')
3. 'Aborigines are more trusting and honest' - as a universalising generalisation this is statement is an empirical still-birth. Move along, nothing to see here folks, except ignorance.
4. 'Han' people are less trusting and honest (see point 3 above)
5. 'Han' people can easily outsmart Aborigines? This is cultural chauvinism at it's ugliest. If I were an aborigine I might be starting to feel deeply insulted if not outraged at this blatant example of 'Han supremacy' ideology. Perhaps if 'Han' were forced to learn Aborigine languages in order to do ANY business at all with Aborigines then they might not feel so superior and the interaction between the 'two' groups might have more even outcomes in terms of cost benefits.
How many more examples of central government / State indifference and arrogance toward aborigines will it take before aborigines stop voting for 'Han'-centric parties?
