Minister Yiong believes that the development of Hakka studies can be divided into four stages: ethnic Chinese studies, Hakka studies, migration studies, and global studies. The first stage began in 1920, dealing with the essence or origin of Hakka people. It focused on matters regarding Hakka population and their ancestral homeland of China’s Central Plains. The second stage, studies on Hakka characteristics, initially looked into the southeast mountains of China. A group of people eventually came to be known as “Hakka”, possibly due to interethnic relations and political upheavals. Its chief object of study was the formation of the Hakka people. The third stage of migration studies centered on Southeast Asia, taking a closer look at the local assimilation of and differences between Hakka people settled in different countries. The fourth stage has only just started. In terms of geographic scope, it now encompasses the Indian, Pacific, and Caribbean Oceans. We can observe how, accompanied by people of African and Indian origin, Hakka people worked in plantations of tropical regions and participated in revolutions for independence of colonies in the colonial era. In post-colonial times, they are major actors in society and the re-building of nations, jointly shaping the modern world. This is therefore the study of the global and modern aspects of Hakka people.
The theme for the World Hakka Congress x Biennial International Conference of the Consortium of Global Hakka Studies was “Localism, Globalism and Pluralism of Hakka People”. Numerous scholars from Taiwan and abroad were invited to discuss the Hakka identity, language, literature, social composition, religious beliefs, and more topics, publishing a total of 49 academic papers.
The Consortium of Global Hakka Studies (GHAS) is a global academic exchange platform founded on December 10, 2019 by 10 universities of 7 countries: Taiwan, the United States, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for global Hakka research and academic collaboration. Each member university has also signed a bilateral academic exchange MoU with each other to promote international academic exchanges and improve the depth and quality of Taiwanese Hakka research. The aim is to solidify Taiwan’s core position at the heart of global Hakka studies.
