to discredit one’s political enemy (apparently birth at a location which today is under ‘communist’ control would some disqualify ma — they would tend to believe), someone ‘found’ a document filled by one of ma’s daughter (authenticity still unconfirmed) stating ma was born in shenzhen despite ma producing an official document from the hospital (which is still here today) in hong kong.

such laughable nonsense pop up every other month if you tend to deep-green/deep-blue blogs.

It’s kinda pointless to debate whether Lee Teng-hui is Hakka, since I suspect that if it was up to him, he’d rather be Japanese. ;-)

ma ying jeou’s hakka origin is quite remote and at least his family forgot about this at least a few generations ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_people#Prominent_Hakkas.5Bcitation_needed.5D
the wiki page has many claims that i am a little doubful. it even listed chen shui-bian as hakka :)
it also listed Thaksin and Annette Lu as Hakka.

(yeah, not sure why ma is hakka — his ancetry is from hunan)

Friction between the Hakkas and the Hoklos, the Minnan speakers who constitute the majority of the pre-1949 population in Taiwan, is part of the island’s history, and was harnessed by the KMT in building the ethnic coalition that keeps the party in power. Both parties eagerly court the Hakka vote.

The poster writes:

++++Hakkas are also common leadership figures outside China. Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore is a Hakka, as is his son and successor Lee Hsien Loong. And in Taiwan, both the pro-independence previous president Lee Ying-yuan, and current Beijing-friendly president Ma Ying-Jeou, are Hakka.++++

This is all garbled up. The previous pro-independence president who was a Hakka is Lee Teng-hui, and he was only half-Hakka (which means that during the early part of his presidency the leaders of China, Singapore, and Taiwan were Hakka, more or less). Although I have lived here in Taiwan for twenty years more or less, never have I heard Ma Ying-jeou, who was born in China in Shenzhen, was a Hakka (though that might explain why his birth stories constantly shift and obscure, with him usually claiming he was born in Hong Kong). What is your evidence that Ma is a Hakka?

Michael Turton
The View from Taiwan

Lee Ying-yuan is a DPP politician, and has never been president.

1) Lee Tenghui, the former (1st elected) president in ROC/Taiwan is Hakka. during those year, the 3 ethnic chinese communities (prc,roc,sgp) are all ruled by hakkas, it was said.

2) theories have that, hakka migration to the south comes across many waves. from the 300-500AD barbarian invasion till the mogolian invasion in circa 1200. many resided in the mountains, as you correctly stated, the more valuable lowland was already taken. the most typical example is in taiwan, where fujianian took the lowland (60-65% pop), and hakka (10-15%) took the mountains.

3) i am not sure about the ‘military tradition’ theory. the fact is, marginalised people who used to be highly educated tend to preserve the tradition for more aggressiveness and aspiration for achievement — an often used analogy is Jew in the west.

4) education is empahsized in Han china (confuciusm) acrosss all ethnicity/tribes (well now includes manchurian chinnese as well). there is really no distinction for the hakka

5) at the turn of the 20th century, southern china (and shanghai) has more contact with the west (due to HK and also coolies in the west), hence more revolutionaries. i do not think that is necessary hakka, but more guangdong.

6) btw, deng xiaoping is from sichuan hakka. the Lee’s originally from fujian hakka. sun yatsen is guangdong.

The Tulou round houses in Fujian are probably the most spectacular example of the history of conflict of the Hakka: they’re basically small forts.

McKellar, my bet is that you can probably separate things even further than that, especially “the interior”: there’s the Northeast, the old heavy industry heart of China that’s being left far behind by the coast; the upper Yangtze region, including Sichuan, Henan, and so on, which is starting to pick up in its industrial capacities, thanks in part to the Three Gorges power supply; and the upper Yellow region, which is literally being swallowed up by the desert.

As for when did Guangdong became really become “Chinese,” the first real presence began back in the Qin or Han dynasty, but things were pretty iffy until at least the Tang, and probably the Song. The last Song emperor fleeing the Mongols died in the sea off Hong Kong.

Curzon: I think you got Lee Ying-yuan (DPP former EY member) and Lee Teng-hui (KMT former president, TSU spiritual leader) mixed up: they’re both Hakka. Incidentally, current DPP president Tsai Ing-wen is also Hakka.

If everyone in China is “Han” then the leadership of China has the right to rule all of them. However, anyone who has traveled East to West or North to South in China can see obvious physical changes in the Chinese people.

For instance the Cantonese in southern China look much different. They have a different dialect and culture to a degree. There are blank spots in history as to who has ruled the southern Chinese coast. I believe dynasties long ago erased any history of what happened down there and pushed a systematic campaign to make those people “Han” and therefore no different than their other subjects. Thus suppressing any resistance or nationalism.

Observing PRC policy in Xinjiang you can see this tendency. Despite being a Marxist state they have come to the conclusion that no amount of economic development will make the Uyghurs happy being part of China. So the state’s goal now is to make that population “Han” and therefore it MUST BE ruled by China. Ethnocentric thought has been a source of legitimacy for Chinese leadership for a long time.

My general impression was now China’s regionalism is divided into four main areas, besides the autonomous regions:

1) The interior, led from Beijing, and primarily concerned with converting rural peasants into urban workers.
2) The SE coast, centered on Guangzhou and Hong Kong, and linked with Taiwan and Singapore.
3) Shanghai, which is less Chinese than international.
4) The Yellow Sea coast, including the Liaoning and Shandong peninsulas, with increasing connection to South Korea and the Russian far east.

Though Tibet and Xinjiang get all the media play, I bet the real power struggles within the CCP are between factions from these four regions, and future developments, like a unified Korea, could change the dynamic considerably.