Exploring the Potential Opportunities of China’s Environmental Agenda, Ecological Civilization, on Global Sustainable Development

Yilong Li, Yu-Ting Tang (), May Tan-Mullins and Christopher D. Ives
Additional contact information
Yilong Li: School of Geographical Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo 315100, China
Yu-Ting Tang: School of Geographical Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo 315100, China
May Tan-Mullins: Deputy Vice Chancellor Office, James Cook University, Singapore, 149 Sims Drive, Singapore 387380, Singapore
Christopher D. Ives: School of Geography, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-25

Abstract: Ecological civilization is an important paradigm proposed by China in the context of growing local environmental challenges. The application of ecological civilization may have a spillover effect on the globe. To understand how the paradigm is interpreted by the international academic community and its Chinese counterpart, a bibliometric map of related articles published between 2000 and 2019 was mapped according to the identities of the collected Chinese and international bibliographies (9196 in CNKI and 664 in WoS). The keyword frequency statistics confirm that the concept of ecological civilization has been frequently connected to visions of sustainable development within and outside of China. The chronology of publication numbers and keyword bursts indicated that the studies related to ecological civilization have gained significant traction in China due to official support and the subjects of the research are sensitive to the change in leadership. The much lower publication number of international studies and China-centered co-authored studies indicate that the international community is less enthusiastic about ecological civilization. This may become a barrier to fostering consensus about international collaboration on mutually beneficial sustainable development. Based on the keyword burst analysis, this study is the first to reveal that green development is currently a shared interest in China and internationally in the literature on ecological civilization; international collaboration pursuing green development may be a path to realize global sustainable development goals. Further systemic review of the contents of individual research may need to be conducted to confirm and refine the findings of this bibliometric analysis.

Keywords: ecological civilization; bibliometric analysis; sustainable development; green development; human-environment relationship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/5135/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/5135/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:6:p:5135-:d:1096827

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().