"China, at least prior to the 1980s, appeared to have been always an institutionally premodern state." https://books.google.com/books?id=Ub5sCwAAQBAJ
the zigengnong, around for 2000 years, "organized the peasants according to their blood or kinship relationships or, less importantly, by their geographic location." https://books.google.com/books?id=Ub5sCwAAQBAJ
ca. 500 years max of (residential?) nuclear families in warring states/qin/early han china (ca. b.c. 475 to a.d. 25). https://books.google.com/books?id=EHKxM31e408C but then they went back to (residential) extended families: