As the United States and China wrestle for control of Taiwan, the Taiwanese people want nothing more than to be free. But even as the specter of conflict looms large, the meaning of freedom differs wildly for different groups in Taiwan – particularly the Indigenous communities, historically the most vulnerable to all forms of oppression.

Bulaw Tumi is a Sakizaya activist. And like any Sakizaya he is wary by nature. He has good reason to be. His people “continue to suffer the effects of colonial oppression, which has sapped their spirit and instilled in them a sense of inferiority,” Tumi told me.  “The current situation is not the fruit of our choosing, but of history itself.”

The Old Wound 

In 1878, invading soldiers from the Qing dynasty – the regime that ruled mainland China at the time – nearly wiped out the Sakizaya, who then inhabited the Hualien Plain. Their leader, Kumud Pazik, was butchered slowly, sadistically, until nothing remained of him but a bloodied, lifeless torso. 

His wife, Icep Kanasaw, met an equally tragic fate. Qing soldiers trampled her to death, crushing her face, legs, and chest with their boots. She endured this ordeal for roughly 20 minutes before passing out. She would never awaken. 

Perhaps it was a mercy. The alternative would have been to watch her husband, bound to a tree, bleeding relentlessly, as he held on until sunrise the following day. Unlike Kanasaw, the surviving  Sakizaya people were forced to bear witness, stunned and mortified, to that nightmarish spectacle. 

The barbaric execution of the couple brought the hostilities between the Sakizaya and the Chinese invaders to a close. There was no ceasefire, no gentleman’s agreement. There was simply almost no one left to resist the Qing. It is estimated that over the course of three months, thousands of people were killed, some of them belonging to neighboring tribes. 

Men, women, children, and elders – Sakizaya people of all ages were slaughtered. The survivors were forced to remain in silence, in the shadows. Many moved eastward, toward the coast, abandoning their traditional lands in search of safety.

Then came the Japanese, who colonized Taiwan after the Qing ceded their claim in the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki. By that point, many of the Sakizaya were living among the Amis, forced to conceal their real tribal identity to survive. They had grown accustomed to a way of life and a culture that were not their own. 

Later came the Nationalist Chinese, who fled to Taiwan en masse after losing the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Leader Chiang Kai-shek showed the same contempt for Indigenous peoples as his predecessors had done centuries before. Prejudice and xenophobia were rampant everywhere. 

It was not until 2007 that the Sakizaya were officially recognized as Taiwan’s 13th tribe. Nearly 130 years after the mass slaughter of their people, the Sakizaya could finally openly lay claim to their unique identity.

Until quite recently, children were discouraged from asking about their ethnic heritage, and sometimes even mistreated for doing so. Perhaps that is why it proved so difficult to find anyone willing to speak on the Sakizaya. I reached out to half a dozen people and a handful of non-governmental organizations. Of that list, only two responded: one was Tumi, and the other was Jolan Hsieh, a Siraya academic and activist. 

The Next Invasion

Over Hualien hangs a fear – real and justified – that history will repeat itself and that invading forces will punish Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples once more. But are the Sakizaya and the remaining tribes prepared for the possibility of war? 

The Chinese of today would not come bearing sabers and muskets, but cannons and torpedo boats. How will they fight back? 

About a month ago, I heard word of a rather curious individual. He goes by the name “Samuel Morpheus.” That is not, of course, his real name. He is called Hsieh Yi-hung. Word has it he travels back and forth across Taiwan, hoping to raise public awareness about how people should act in the event of war. 

He is frequently accompanied by a former U.S. soldier, retired Lieutenant Colonel Guermantes Lailari, better known by his nickname, “G-man,” who sees their shared goal as “prevent[ing] the next terrorist incident – the red terror.”

“If Taiwan lacks the determination to defend itself, then will Americans sacrifice their own lives to protect cowardly Taiwanese who are unwilling to make a sacrifice for their country?” Hsieh asked the Radio Free Asia newspaper in a 2024 interview. He added: “Our preparations are as powerful as nuclear weapons.” 

Hsieh was wrong. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, more powerful, more terrifying, or more devastating than a nuclear weapon. Not even the determination and courage of an entire people. 

Hsieh, who is himself a member of the Taiwan Indigenous community, also avoided speaking about another issue that makes his task harder. Taiwan’s many peoples have not yet fully healed the wounds of their colonial past.

Tourist brochures and the official photographs mask the deep animosity that exists between the island’s Indigenous inhabitants and those who govern them. It’s a tale as old as time: think of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, the Ainu of Japan, or the many Indigenous tribes of North and South America displaced by European invaders.

In Taiwan, ethnic Chinese are the majority. And as such, they claim the right to be the masters of this coveted land. The others – that is, the Indigenous peoples – press the government to do more and do better. 

The Sakizaya, for instance, firmly believe that the mere recognition of their existence is plainly insufficient; their security depends, too, on preserving a degree of autonomy. A fragile people, stripped of their power to make decisions, is a people condemned to death. 

If Taiwan’s defenders tend to overlook this friction, Beijing is all too aware of the potential vulnerability.

“China’s penetration of Taiwan’s local communities, including indigenous ones, represents a real threat, through united front tactics, financing, cultural manipulation, disinformation, rumor campaigns, and advanced tools such as deepfakes,” Jolan Hsieh, the Siraya academic, told me.

I asked Tumi whether he thinks young people would be willing to defend their land. He tells me it is not even certain they would be allowed to stay and fight for what is theirs; the Sakizaya live side by side with a colonial government that seems to have no regard whatsoever for the Indigenous way of life.

“The Katangka area has already been expropriated by the government and turned into an air base,” Tumi pointed out. “The ammunition depots and anti-aircraft defense installations are also located within our traditional territory, but our people are not allowed to enter.” He added that “national defense and the defense of tribal land are treated, in practice, as separate matters.” 

For Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples, however, questions of land and identity are inextricably linked. They are one and the same conversation. When the state expropriates, militarizes, or redefines that space, it is tampering with the very way a community understands itself – how it passes on its culture and how it ensures its own survival. 

Jolan Hsieh agrees: “For Indigenous peoples, identity is inseparable from land, sovereignty, memory, and a sense of belonging. Strengthening this identity does not mean rejecting the State; it demands redefining it through justice, recognition, and decolonization. For Taiwan to become a fully democratic society, Indigenous identity must form part of its political future — not merely its cultural past.”

There is still hope, but time is running out. Already, it’s become a hobby among a certain class of analysts to predict precisely when Taiwan will be wiped from the face of the earth by the specter of war. Will it be a year from now? Two? Ten? It’s a gruesome conversation usually held between people living safely on the other side of the world.

But the Taiwanese people are most concerned with the here and now. Will the government manage to convince Indigenous peoples that it stands with them?

The truth is that the Sakizaya are a colonized people today, just as they were 130 years ago. Where once it was by the force of the sword, today they are victimized by the force of mistrust, greed, and indifference. 

Some would argue that progress has been made. There has been official recognition, cultural promotion, and a greater willingness to acknowledge the existence of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples. Yet recognition is not the same as empowerment. From what I witnessed, many Indigenous communities do not feel represented, protected, or genuinely included in the island’s political life. Their place in the national narrative has become more visible, but their influence over the decisions that shape their future remains limited. Beneath the rhetoric of inclusion lingers a profound sense of abandonment – one that surfaced repeatedly in my conversations and that is difficult to ignore.

For Taiwan’s long-suffering, forgotten, and underrepresented Indigenous people, the prospect of military action by China is just another link in a long chain of historical oppression. Will they manage to survive yet another horde of invaders?