The 2021 Austronesian Forum was held in the Grand Hotel Taipei by the Austronesian Forum Secretariat Office today. The forum began with the opening ceremony and forum general assembly in the morning, while the annual Executive Council meeting with forum members was held in the afternoon. President Tsai Ing-wen, Premier Su Tseng-chang, and former President Tommy Remengesau of the Republic of Palau all attended the opening ceremony and gave remarks. The former President, a traditional leader himself, also gave a speech on the traditional leader system in Palau to great reception.

The Austronesian Forum holds a policy conference biennially, for which different discussion topics are formulated each year. This year’s topic focuses on the traditional leadership systems of Taiwan indigenous peoples and Austronesian countries. For this year’s forum, the traditional leaders of the Republic of Palau were invited to share their respective systems and experiences with the traditional leaders and elders of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples.  

    Chairperson of the Austronesian Forum Executive Council Mr. Icyang stated in his remark that the traditional leader system in Taiwan has changed over time. He hoped that by sharing the traditional social systems in Taiwan and of other countries in the Austronesian region all parties can work together to find a direction for future development. A transcript of Chairperson Icyang 's remarks in the Amis Language follows:

President Tsai, Premier Su, former President Tommy Remengesau of the Republic of Palau, ambassadors and representatives, indigenous traditional leaders, mayors of townships in indigenous areas in Taiwan, representatives of indigenous administrative organizations in local governments, distinguished guests and journalists, good morning to you all!

As the chairperson of the Austronesian Forum Executive Council, I'm very honored to be able to invite everyone to the forum general assembly today to discuss and share the current status and ongoing developments of indigenous traditional social organizations under our topic "Harmonization of Austronesian Traditional Leader Systems and Modern Politics."

Over the past few years, I accompanied President Tsai Ing-wen on many visits to Austronesian countries and personally took part in important events of our diplomatic allies, such as their National Day celebrations. Through these experiences, I was deeply impressed by the commitment and respect Austronesian countries pay to their traditional cultures.

Among these experiences, I was fortunate to have been appointed by President Tsai in 2019 to visit Palau as a special envoy of the President to attend the 25th Independence Day of Palau. The ceremony was hosted by former President of Palau Tommy Remengesau, who is also present here today. Furthermore, in the vast Austronesian region, there exist traditional leadership systems in countries such as the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu that we can learn from.

The 16 indigenous peoples in Taiwan each have different social systems in their traditional societies. Take my own people, the Amis, for example. Other than Kakit'an (community leaders), we also have a very strict age class system which enforces rigorous training and labor division to different age groups and requires that youngsters obey the teaching of the elders. It is with such training that the spirit of labor division, responsibility, and discipline of the Amis society can be passed on over the generations. However, just like many of the Austronesian peoples, the traditional leader systems of Taiwanese indigenous peoples have also changed somewhat over time.   

In addition, with support from President Tsai Ing-wen and Premier Su Tseng-chang, the Six-Year Plan was verified and approved by the Taiwanese government in 2019 in support of the Austronesian Forum, providing us with a stable budget and manpower to promote the various projects of language and culture, industry, and human resource capacity building in the Austronesian region.

Finally, I would like to thank all the traditional leaders, mayors of townships in indigenous areas, and local government officials for coming all this way to join us. I hope that by bringing together the Austronesian traditional leaders in the forum today to share our experiences, we will be able to discover unlimited possibilities for the sustainable development of Austronesian culture, thank you!