This essay focused on various discourses related to the conception of 'Nation' in late Qing of China through synthetic examination on the concept of cultural 'ethnic' and political 'nation', or relationship of state. The late Qing era of China considered on the research was traditional World-system of China collapsing from the impact of Western civilization and the period that nation-state concept of modern switched was needed. And the conceptions of meeting the trend of the day swiftly flew from Western civilization, however, as the late Qing's intellectuals used together with and in conjunction with the terms and definitions, such as 'race,' 'people,' 'nation,' 'ethnic,' 'state,' 'rights,' and 'sovereignty,' had even not current researchers as well as Chinese at that time convey the definite meaning of the new terms. In order to solve these problems, This essay uses the conceptual analytical frame which is called a concept of cultural 'ethnic' and political 'nation', then tried to approach about accommodating process of the concept of cultural 'ethnic' political 'nation', and the late Qing intellectuals's recognition on 'nation' and 'people', and late Qing Chinese's various discourses which besieged the cultural 'ethnic' with the perspective of a conceptional history.
As result of this research, even though the concept of 'Clan class(族類)' frequently mentioned in traditional period of China is familiar with the concept of cultural 'ethnic,' after modern period, I could find that the concept like 'nation-state' including cultural 'ethnic' and political 'nation' did not exist at that time. In addition, I confirmed that Chinese from time to time used mixed terms on 'ethnic' and 'people' or 'ethnic' of cultural 'ethnic' was used by 'people of clan' and 'ethnic' in accommodating process of the concept. But they distinguished cultural 'ethnic' from political 'nation' and introduced them as well. Furthermore, Chinese intellectuals defined as different the concept of cultural 'ethnic' and political 'nation' after 1903 and the late Qing intellectuals on the concept of cultural 'ethnic' presented the cultural factors; ancestry, pedigree, language, religion, custom, practice, and history. On contrary they on the concept of political 'nation' mentioned the concepts like 'territory,' 'sovereignty,' 'state,' and 'right'. Finally, I focused on revolutional group and reformative group during the period of XINHAI(辛亥) Revolution and analyzed the perspective of both groups on modern 'nation,' 'state,' and 'people.