Expert rejects claim linking Batanes to China through Ivatan ancestry

MANILA, Philippines — A Filipino anthropologist has dismissed as “politically motivated” the claim of a Chinese researcher that “anthropological evidence” backs the assertion that Batanes, the northernmost province of the Philippines, belongs to China through Taiwan.

Dr. Nestor Castro, a cultural anthropologist on indigenous peoples’ issues and heritage, disproved the claim of a certain Wang Yuanyuan, a research fellow at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, who pointed out evidence that the province constitutes Taiwan.

“Anthropological evidence confirms that the roughly 10,000 Ivatan residents of the Batanes share cognate languages, analogous customs and identical underground dwellings with the Tao people of Orchid Island in the Taiwan region,” she said.

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READ: Chinese academics claim Batanes belongs to China through Taiwan

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Wang stated that studies by Filipino anthropologists in 2023 verified that the elderly inhabitants of Batanes still speak the Tao language — an incontestable proof that their ancestors migrated from the Taiwan region some 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, the Global Times reported.

“This claim is now being used by proxies of the People’s Republic of China as evidence to justify China’s claim over Batanes. But what is really the truth,” Castro said on Facebook on Sunday, July 12.

Language not linked

As he pointed out, Wang’s interpretation distorts established findings in anthropology, linguistics and history, saying that the language spoken by the Tao people of Lanyu, or Orchid Island, and the Ivatan language are both members of the Western Malayo-Polynesian (WMP).

READ: Tao boat from Taiwan reaches Batanes, revives ancient sea route

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The WMP is a subgroup of the Austronesian language family.

“The languages spoken in mainland China are not Austronesian. Although the indigenous languages of Formosa (Taiwan) also belong to the Austronesian language family, they fall under a separate subgroup known as the Formosan languages,” he said.

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For Castro, this indicates that the Tao language is linguistically more closely related to other WMP languages, including virtually all languages spoken in the Philippines, except Chavacano, as well as languages spoken in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and even Madagascar in Africa.

“If we were to follow China’’s logic, the Philippines would actually have a stronger basis for claiming Lanyu (Orchid Island) because of its close linguistic and cultural affinity with the people of the Philippines,” he stressed.

READ: Batanes will not yield ‘even an inch,’ Army official says

Likewise, Castro explained that Austronesian-speaking people reached Taiwan about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, and they arrived in the Philippines around 4,200 to 5,000 years ago: “Were these Austronesian peoples Chinese?”

“No,” he said, pointing out that China, as a state, did not even exist 5,000 years ago. “Why, then, should China claim linguistic territories whose peoples had already been there long before China itself came into existence?”

The ‘Tao’

The people of Lanyu (Orchid Island) call themselves “Tao,” which means “people,” Castro said.

“They are not Han Chinese. They are not Chinese. Filipinos likewise use the word tao (or tawo in some Philippine languages) to refer to ourselves. In that sense, we have more in common with the Tao people of Lanyu,” he stressed.

Taiwan itself does not claim Batanes, and as he explained, Taiwan is a self-governing country that has never been under the rule of the People’s Republic of China: “It is therefore illogical for China to claim Batanes simply because it also claims Taiwan.”

READ: NHCP debunks claims of scholars who said Batanes belongs to China

The National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) on Friday, July 10 said the claim of Chinese scholars who said that Batanes belongs to China through Taiwan lacks basis and “would never stand under scrutiny in academic discourse” outside of China.

According to the commission, the “earliest known extensive documentation” of Batanes Islands that was made by British explorer Willian Dampier in 1687 showed “no trace of Chinese governance.”

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“The natives of Batanes, the Ivatan people, lived in protected communities and traded with other maritime trading nations. This is clear in the archeological and historical evidence produced by more than a hundred years of research,” NHCP said. /dl