The discourses of green modernization and eco-civilizational progress in contemporary China: convergence, tension and mutual learning

Abstract

“Chinese modernization”, articulated systematically by the working report to the 20th National Congress of Communist Party of China(CPC) in 2022, has been gradually become a worldwide-known popular concept, which emphasizes harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature as one of its “five unique features”. A significant change arisen from it is that, two green theoretical discourses of “eco-civilizational progress” and “green modernization” in contemporary China have historically converged. In the Chinese context, the two discourses can be to a large extent understood as characteristic forms of a more general green discourse. Both the goals or the objectives to be transformed and the dependent environment are common or shared. As self-contained discursive theories, though, there are also noticeable differences and even a certain degree of tension between them. An ideal situation would be that, on the one hand, both of them are consciously put under a broader framework of green discourse theory, from which they can mutually learn and promote from each other, and on the other hand, it is expected that that can better serve China’s practice of building a modern socialist country in all respects.