Attempts to seek explanations of political structures and events from theeconomic realm were a general trend in Western social science from the 18thcentury to the first half of the 20th century.

The enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century believed that behind arelatively stable and long-term political structure, there must be a relativelystable economic structure and even a geographical basis.

With the rise of the modern nation-state, the king and the emerging bourgeoisiewho have been given the symbolic meaning of the "state" are workinghard to find the foundation of the nation and build the nation's national,economic and cultural foundation.

Therefore, some extreme ethnic theories have emerged: the nation-state shouldbe based on a single nation, the state should be based on a unified economic system,especially the market system, and the country should have a unified mind andculture. In other words, a unified country should be based on a unifiedcountry, a unified economy, and a unified culture.

According to western state theories of the 19th century, the Qing Dynasty wasnot a "nation": there was no unified national concept, no unifiedeconomic system, and no unified culture. Affected by this trend ofthought, the awakening pioneers of the Chinese nation first worked hard to builda "unified Chinese nation" in the process of "rebuildingChina." During the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, allsectors of society made great efforts to this end.