Abstract: For modern China, the fundamental issue concerning Minzu is to find a way to position multiple ethnic groups appropriately in the system of nation-state, both institutionally and ideologically. As a part of this endeavor, Chinese intellectuals during the 20th century made great efforts to reconstruct historical narratives on how a "multi-ethnic China" had manifested and consolidated over time. This paper outlines three narratives after a systematical analysis of the important works on national and ethnic history during this period. The first narrative appeared in the early 1900s came from the writings on history of China, in which China and "ethnic Han" were interchangeable and the formation of "China" was described as a fierce competition for survival between Han and non-Han people. The second narrative came from the new-type "ethnic history" developed in the 1920s and 1930s, in which the conception of "China" was distinguished from that of "ethnic Han" and the principle of ethnic equality became a consensus. Meanwhile, the concept of "amalgamation" and "assimilation" emerged as important terms, and the formation of multi-ethnic China was depicted as a process of continual ethnic fusion. The last narrative was shaped by the framework of historical materialism. Since the 1940s, a new theoretical perspective had been promoted by Marxist historians. On the one hand, their anti-Han-chauvinism political standing compelled them to oppose a Han-Centered narrative; on the other hand, their belief in Marxist universal development stages of human society allowed them to place ethnic Han in the dominant and advanced position in Chinese history. Although these three narratives are quite different in framework and viewpoints, nevertheless they share one thing in common:the theoretical recognition and anxiety of two contradictory notions:Ethnic Han deserves a dominant position of the nation and all ethnic groups should be equally treated. This tension reflects the fundamental paradox of modern China as "a nation-state of multiple ethnicities." To this day, this paradox still constitutes a basic valid framework for understanding the issues concerning Minzu.

Key words: ethnic history, historical view of nationality and ethnicity, historical narrative, multi-ethnic China, a nation-state of multiple ethnicities