Festivities are thought of as the process of evoking the past and returning to the present, so how to set up a holiday system reflects the standpoint from which a nation state narrates the past.

节日是一个在当下唤起过去然后回到当下的过程，节日的设置通常反映了民族国家在当下叙说过去的立场。

youdao

The things that define for the Chinese who they are and what China is are a product not of the past 100 years of calling itself a nation-state but 2, 000 years of being a civilisation-state.

BBC: A Point Of View: Making sense of China