China’s Agenda for the 21st Century

Also known as “White Paper on China's Population, Environment and Development in the 21st Century”. It is the overall strategy, plan and program for China’s sustainable development, formulated in accordance with the “Agenda for the 21st Century” adopted at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, which is the guiding document for the Chinese government to formulate medium and long-term plans for national economic and social development. In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Conference proposed and adopted the “Agenda for the 21st Century”, established a global sustainable development strategy, and called on countries to formulate their own sustainable development strategies according to their own conditions. The Chinese government has made a solemn commitment to fulfill the “Agenda for the 21st Century” and other documents. In March 1994, the 16th Executive Meeting of the State Council formally adopted the world’s first national-level sustainable development agenda, “China’s Agenda for the 21st Century”. “China’s Agenda for the 21st Century” consists of 20 chapters and 78 program areas. The main contents are divided into four parts: overall strategy and policy for sustainable development, social sustainable development, economic sustainable development, rational use of resources and environmental protection.

Each part is composed of several chapters, and each chapter has two sections of introduction and program area. The introduction focuses on clarifying the purpose, significance, working basis and main difficulties of the chapter, while the program area explains the approaches and actions taken to solve the problems. “China’s Agenda for the 21st Century” is a sustainable development strategy formulated according to the national conditions of the country. It has seven outstanding characteristics: take economy, society, resources and environment as an inseparable whole; the theme is “development”, which reflects the new development concept; solving the relationship between population and development is another strategic priority of the agenda; China ’s resource and environmental strategy reflects that China, as a whole, is not rich in resources; the core of China ’s environmental strategy in the 21st century is shifting from environmental externalization to environmental internalization; global environmental issues become more acute; and capacity building is the basis for the implementation of the sustainable development strategy. In order to promote the implementation of “China’s Agenda for the 21st Century”, China has also formulated the “Priority Programme for China's Agenda for the 21st Century”, which provides opportunities and approaches for extensive international cooperation and the incorporation of “China’s Agenda for the 21st Century” into the national economic and social development plan. Priority areas under the framework of “Priority Programme for China's Agenda for the 21st Century” include resources and environmental protection, world environmental issues, population control and social sustainable development, sustainable development capacity building, sustainable development of industry and transportation, sustainable development of agriculture and sustainable energy production and consumption.

In October 1995, the “Research Report on Incorporation of ‘China’s Agenda for the 21st Century’ into the National Economic and Social Development Plan” was formally released. The State Development Planning Commission and the State Scientific and Technological Commission jointly drafted the “Opinions on Further Promoting the Implementation of ‘China's Agenda for the 21st Century’” on June 5, 1996, and put forward specific requirements for the implementation of the agenda. At the same time, various departments and localities successively issued their own implementation plans. “China’s Agenda for the 21st Century” is a guiding document for the formulation of medium and long-term plans for China's national economic and social development. It is also the principled position and practical action for the Chinese government to earnestly implement the documents of the 1992 United Nations Environment and Development Conference. The formulation and implementation of “China’s Agenda for the 21st Century” is an inevitable choice for China’s future development from now to the next century and beyond; and is also imperative to earnestly fulfilling China’s commitment in the field of environment and development and adapting to new situations and new features of the international environment and development field. “China’s Agenda for the 21st Century” reflects the program and blueprint of the Chinese government to promote the sustainable development strategy, depicts China's long-term, comprehensive, and progressive sustainable development framework and corresponding countermeasures, and represents China's grand vision towards the 21st century and for a better future.