Safeguard environment while promoting high-quality development, president says

President Xi Jinping emphasized the need to maintain strategic resolve to advance ecological progress while calling on the whole society to vigorously promote and act as role models in practicing the concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks in instructions released on Tuesday, China's first National Ecology Day.

He said efforts should be made to maintain strategic resolve to advance ecological progress on the new journey of building China into a modern socialist country in all respects, urging efforts to enhance environmental protection while promoting high-quality development.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, decided at a session in June to designate Aug 15 as National Ecology Day to promote the construction of an ecological civilization.

In his instructions, Xi said that ecological conservation is of vital importance for the sustainable development of the Chinese nation.

He described ecological conservation as "a major political issue" that concerns the mission and purpose of the CPC as well as "a major social issue" that bears on the well-being of the public.

With a focus on achieving the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, the country should facilitate the gradual transition from dual control over the amount and intensity of energy consumption to dual control over the amount and intensity of carbon emissions, he said.

Xi urged consistent efforts to promote the transition toward green and low-carbon production methods and lifestyles, accelerate the advancement of modernization featuring harmony between humans and nature, and build a Beautiful China in all respects.

He called for concrete and constant efforts throughout society to make greater contributions to jointly build a clean and beautiful world.

An event to mark National Ecology Day was held on Tuesday in Huzhou, Zhejiang province, the place where Xi first put forward the concept of "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" during an inspection tour in 2005 of Yucun, a village in Anji county of Huzhou.

Xi's instructions were conveyed by Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, at the opening ceremony of the event.

Md Qumruzzaman Chowdhury, a professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Science at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology in Bangladesh, told Xinhua News Agency that China's National Ecology Day will enhance public awareness and actions to protect the ecological environment.

China's successful efforts to build an ecological civilization have come as a big boon to the global green agenda amid climatic shocks worldwide, Chowdhury said.

"Successful implementation of the ecological renewal model in China now offers great lessons to the countries and regions striving to restore degraded habitats and strengthen the resilience of communities vulnerable to climate-induced calamities," he added.