Theoretical foundation, realistic challenges and promotion strategies of building a Beautiful China: Insights from the discussions at the 2025 Annual Conference of the Chinese Ecological Economics Society

Building a Beautiful China is the key aim for the construction of an ecological civilization in the 15th Five-Year Plan period and even longer. The CPC Central Committee’s Decision on Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Advancing Chinese Modernization emphasizes the following aspects: focus on building a Beautiful China; accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development; improving the ecological and environmental governance system; promoting eco-friendly, resource-efficient, green, and low-carbon development; and fostering harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. Based on this, this article systematically reviews the key issues regarding the construction of a Beautiful China discussed at the 2025 Academic Annual Conference of the Chinese Ecological Economics Society, and elaborates them within the framework of “theoretical foundation − realistic challenges − promotion strategies” aiming to provide insights for thoroughly understanding the strategic position of the Beautiful China initiative in the new era and for robustly advancing the modernization of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. The core essence of building a Beautiful China is embodied in the ecological outlook of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature; the development outlook which emphasizes that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets”; the people’s livelihood outlook that a sound ecological environment is the most inclusive public welfare; the system outlook of integrated protection and systematic management of mountains, waters, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands and sands; the legal outlook of protecting the ecological environment with the strictest institutions and the most rigorous laws; and the synergistic outlook of jointly shaping global ecological civilization. However, the construction process faces multiple challenges, including difficulties in pollution control, structural transformation tasks, conflicts between protection and development, and imperfect governance system. Therefore, it is necessary to optimize development pathways in four dimensions, including continuously and thoroughly fighting the critical battle against pollution, accelerating the green and low-carbon transformation of the development, supporting high-quality development with high-level protection, and improving the guarantee system for building a Beautiful China to achieve organic unity of economic, social, and ecological benefits.