Is a modern nation-state a political or historicalcultural community? This is now one of central questions discussed in international intellectual circles.Actually, in response to the question, we may identify two corresponding intellectual threads in the history of ideas in modern China.One was republicanism-oriented political patriotism represented by Zhang Foquan, and the other, represented by Zhang Junmai, was cultural nationalism with communitarianist characteristics.Carrying on Liang Qichao's nationalist thought in the late Qing Dynasty, they both belonged to liberal thinkers in the period of the Republic.Despite their emphasis on the national rejuvenation, they disagreed profoundly on questions of how to construct a modern nation-state, what the citizen's identity should be, and what public culture is.These conflicting ideas are important, demonstrating the divergence and tension within the modern Chinese trend of nationalism.