When Mao Zedong took power in 1949, his immediate goal was to re-establish the “greater China” of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), insisting that the Manchu-led empire was the permanent and enduring China. But, while the assault on the Qing Dynasty by foreign powers is a historical fact, the notion that there has been one enduring China struggling against avaricious outsiders across several millennia is false and self-serving.