China does not exist. ““China” is, and always has been, an economic category. The Occidental mirage of the “Far East” arose to designate the stubborn persistence of various non-capitalist modes of production on the East Asian mainland. After the “opening” of China demonstrated the Qing empire’s fundamental incoherence, late-imperial nationalists, often educated in the West, picked through the region’s history to construct a narrative of a coherent Chinese nation-state stretching back to ancient times. This project was soon continued by liberals, anarchists and communists alike. Since this indigenous narrative of “China” arose in the midst of a crippled empire, ruled in law by one “foreign” force (the Manchus) and in fact by another (the West), one of the key characteristics of the newly-imagined “Chinese” nation was its foundation in a suppressed Han culture and ethnic identity. Opposition to the Qing first took on the character of a restoration of Han rule, and newly-formed resistance organizations such as secret societies were perceived as partisans of this lost national essence, their slogan: Fan Qing Fu Ming—Oppose the Qing, Restore the Ming.”