The Austronesians are a group of ethnic communities spread across a vast region of the world – including Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands – who speak languages from the Austronesian language family, one of the world’s largest.
The Out of Taiwan theory suggests their homeland was Taiwan before they migrated across the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.
But in an article first published in January by an outlet affiliated with the National Ethnic Affairs Commission, Ao Peng, from Fujian University of Technology’s Austronesian Language Family Research Institute, said the hypothesis was flawed and the Austronesian peoples originated 8,400 years ago along mainland China’s southeastern coast, with the main areas being today’s Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces.
“In recent years, pro-independence forces in Taiwan have sought to divide the Chinese national community by promoting separatist rhetoric, claiming that Taiwan’s Austronesian peoples are not part of the Chinese nation and have not been influenced by Chinese civilisation,” Ao said in the article.
