 Gu questioned the historicity of this myth not only to rectify errors in understanding, but also to destroy the entire philosophy of history that revolved around looking back to this supposed golden age.Gu debunked the spurious past, says Schneider, to redefine “the idea of ‘Chinese’ through a process of reordering the relation of past and present”.Yet he believed China’s true past yielded “sources of radical inspiration both for destroying the old traditions and for creating and authorizing new ones.”

Gu also sought to provide the basis for a new national history with his theory of Chinese diversity, as opposed to continuity and homogeneity, the main assumptions of nationalistSinocentrism.