Abstract: There have been heated discussions around the topic of identity in different disciplines in recent years. Concerning the study of history, particular attention has been paid to the discussion on “new History of the Qing Dynasty”, as well as the dispute on the special issue of James Watson in the America-based Modern China, which are directly related to the stress on the diversification and the inquiries into the mechanism of unification in the China studies at home and aboard. The immigrant stories could be a breakthrough point for the discussion on the regional identity. They were important representation of the development of regional identity, namely, the formation of Ming-Qing states from the 16th to 18th centuries. However, both the discussion on identity and the analysis of the formation of Ming-Qing states should be put in a concrete historical context and a spatio-temporal process.