The major objectives of modern archaeology in China have been to search for the origins of Chinese civilization and to reconstruct the national history, a general orientation described by Bruce Trigger as nationalist archaeology. This paper examines the new developments in Chinese archaeology, and evaluates the new roles that archaeology has played domestically and internationally since the 1980s. During these 40 years, Chinese archaeology has become more diverse in practice and multivocal in interpretation, but the mainstream of this discipline has not detoured from its original mission to reconstruct national history as part of nation-state building.