Nation-building in modern China at the beginning of the twentieth century had to manage the strain between ethnic nationalism and the claim of a multi-ethnic national identity. This study focuses on how history textbooks defined China and addressed this paradox. Based on the qualitative content analysis of eight popular middle school history textbooks about imperial China, this paper demonstrates how Han nationalism and the multi-ethnic nationality of China evolved in the textbooks. While these two features of national concept contradict each other, the thesis of Hanhua may serve as a bridge between them within the symbolic framework of Chinese nationalism.