Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, on March 5 took part in a deliberation with his fellow deputies from the delegation of Jiangsu Province at the third session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), China's national legislature, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

As one of the six deputies who gave a speech during the deliberation, Zhao Jianjun, an NPC deputy of Jiangsu delegation and the mayor of Wuxi, talked about how Wuxi, through green development and low-carbon transition, tried to build a beautiful Taihu Lake, China Central Television reported.

Xi asked about the water quality of Taihu lake when he joined deputies from the Jiangsu delegation in 2023, Xinhua reported. He asked if blue-green algae persisted in the lake, which once caused the water quality to deteriorate severely.

The beauty of the lake is described in the song "Taihu Mei," Xi said at the time. The lyrics describe the lake's natural resources and the local life. However, the thought of blue-green algae makes one feel uncomfortable, he said, Xinhua reported.

"The Taihu Lake spans multiple provinces in the Yangtze River Delta. In recent years, we have adhered to an ecological priority and green development approach, achieving the best water quality in Taihu since there is monitoring record," said Zhao, the People's Daily reported.

Zhao stated that Wuxi will continue to take proactive actions and collaborate within the development strategies of integrated development in the Yangtze River Delta and the Yangtze River Economic Belt, further amplifying the ecological value of harmonious mountains and waters, as well as the interdependence of the lake and the city, driving improvements in Taihu's water quality and algal conditions year after year.

Every year during the two sessions, Xi participates in deliberations and discussions with deputies and political advisors. In many interactions, Xi shows great care of environmental protection and ecological conservation.

In 2014, while participating in a deliberation with deputies of the Guizhou delegation, Xi asked in detail about costs to combat rocky desertification. The same year at Guangdong delegation, he asked about the PM 2.5 level in Pearl River Delta and the Dongjiang River water quality.

In his deliberation during the two sessions in 2018, Xi told fellow lawmakers from Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to strengthen the protection of forests and wetlands, make more efforts to fight desertification and pollution, and build the "Green Great Wall" in the northern border of the motherland.

Xi, in an article published in 2023 in Qiushi Journal, said that Chinese modernization is the modernization of harmony between humanity and nature. Promoting harmonious coexistence between humans and nature is a distinctive feature of Chinese modernization.

We must be committed to green development. Green mountains are gold mountains. To protect the environment is to protect productivity, and to improve the environment is to boost productivity, Xi said while addressing the Leaders Summit on Climate via video link from Beijing in 2021.

Beauty of Taihu

Taihu Lake, located mostly in East China's Jiangsu Province, is China's third largest freshwater lake and nurtured the population- and industry-dense southern Jiangsu region.

NPC deputy Yang Hengjun, a village Party chief from Jiangsu Province, clearly remembered March 5, 2023 when Xi joined the delegation discussions and asked about Taihu Lake.

In response to the General Secretary's special care, a deputy from Suzhou reported our efforts and achievements in this regard, particularly the wastewater treatment, and this year mayor Zhao updated new progress we have made - Taihu Lake has seen its water quality improve to its best level in 30 years, Yang told the Global Times.

In 2024, for the first time in three decades, the average water quality of the lake reached Grade III on the country's five-tier water quality system, meaning it was classed as "fairly good," according to the Department of Ecology and Environment of Jiangsu Province.

The biodiversity index for aquatic life in the lake also improved to an "excellent" level, with the number of species in the basin increasing to 6,899, Xinhua reported.

Elder generations from Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou, three manufacturing cities adjacent to Taihu, still remember how it was badly polluted. "When blue-green algae boom [due to eutrophication], the tap water was so stingy that we cannot use it to wash or bathe, not to mention drink and cook," Zhang Jingbo, a Wuxi-based composer, recalled the experience more than a decade ago.

But it is completely different now as "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" has embedded in different sectors and people's daily life.

In Yang's village, the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has reduced, certain household and agricultural wastes are transferred to fertilizers, sewage treatment is enhanced. People's living environment has improved; agriculture became more eco-friendly and organic products are yielding more incomes than before.

The village has also developed photovoltaic projects and realized energy self-sufficiency. All these efforts also raised public awareness to protect environment and ecology, Yang said.

In industry sector, plants of high pollution have been shut and others are transformed to minimize environmental impact, the Global Times learned.

Li Aimin, a professor at School of Environment, Nanjing University and expert on pollution control of Taihu Lake, told the Global Times comprehensive measures have been adopted, including discharge control, upstream targeted pollution reduction, differentiated ecological restoration. The core is emphasizing ecological values, driving Taihu Lake's shift from ecological restoration to green development, Li said.

Zhang the composer said as lyrics of the famous song go, "the beauty of Taihu lies in its water." Now the water is clean, and the wetlands are beautiful. For ordinary people, spending leisure time along the lake has become "such a pleasant thing."

According to Li, Taihu Lake is poised to become a paragon of green development, integrating eco-tourism and leisure vacation functions, thereby achieving a harmony of ecological and economic value.

In a group study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in 2024, Xi pointed out that green development underlies high-quality development, and that the new productive forces in essence are green.

Picture of harmony

To embrace green development, China's top political advisory body set up a new sector on the environment and resources in 2023 to pool wisdom for the country's transition to a more eco-friendly and sustainable path.

In 2024, Xi participated in a joint group meeting during the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Xi urged political advisors from the sector of environment and resources to make new contributions to ecological and environmental protection and sustaining high-quality development with high-level protection, according to Xinhua.

The story of Ulan Suhai Lake, in Bayannur of Inner Mongolia, is a vivid example of realizing both high-quality development and high-level protection.

Since 2018, Xi had given multiple instructions on ecological management of Ulan Suhai Lake when joining delegations of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region during the two sessions.

In an inspection to Bayannur in 2023, Xi stressed it is important to fully and accurately implement the new development philosophy on all fronts, adhere to holistic conservation and systematic governance of mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands and deserts, with sand control as focus and strengthening the eco-security shields in the northern region as fundamental goal.

In recent years, the local authorities have actively sought out the "root causes" of pollution in Ulan Suhai Lake and developed "prescriptions" to address them, implementing a series of measures. For instance, to tackle pollution from industrial wastewater discharge, heavily polluting factories have been shut down, and wastewater treatment plants have been upgraded to ensure that all industrial wastewater is processed there, with discharge only permitted after meeting standards.

To address pollution from agricultural irrigation, a comprehensive "Four Controls and Two Transformations" initiative has been widely launched, controlling fertilizer, pesticides, plastic film, and water use, as well as the resource utilization of livestock manure and straw.

The integrated measures have "made a big difference" in my hometown, local tour guide Huang Jiangang told the Global Times, adding that pollution was tackled, desertification is besieged by afforestation and the lake became haven for wildlife.

There are now more than 260 varieties of birds migrating and breeding in the lake area. Greater flamingos were spotted in May 2024, the first sighting of the species in the lake, according to Xinhua.

The lake was little known by non-locals, but now more and more tourists are coming for its scenic views and various activities. Huang grasped the opportunity and became a tour guide, and the income is "beyond satisfaction."

China's development concept in pursuit of harmony between human and nature looks beyond the anthropocentrism that prioritizes human interests above those of the natural world. Through scientific coordination of various factors within the natural environment and human society, Chinese modernization has pioneered a new approach to achieving coordinated progress in eco-social development and environmental protection, Fang Jingyun, an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and professor of Peking University, wrote on People's Daily.