Abstract: China’s periodic political changes – from the early twentieth century to the present – have to do with China’s inability to adapt to the nation-state system. This in inability is due mainly to two reasons. The first is the authoritarian political system. The other, which is the main focus of this paper, is the size/structure of state. For China, it is hard to apply unitary system to the country’s extensive territory, huge population, and complex socio-political situation. Nonetheless, it is also difficult to reject unitary system and replace it with federalism. More importantly, those arguments that advocate the importation of “federalism” fail to recognize the fact that this concept hardly exhibits the complexity of federal states. Therefore, it is imperative to revisit our understanding of China’s state structure, rather than simply insisting on either unitary or federal system. China should transcend the debate on unitary versus federal system, and work to establish a state structure that suits its size. At the same time, China ought to construct a concept that reflects the reality of its state structure.