Environmental protection has been a basic national policy since the 1980s. The State Environmental Protection Committee was established in 1984 and the first Environmental Protection Law formally issued in 1989. After the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, China was one of the first countries to formulate and carry out a strategy of sustainable development.

The Outline for National Eco-Environmental Protection promulgated in 2000 by the State Council advocated the energetic establishment of eco-provinces, eco-cities, eco-counties and eco-townships. These eco-areas, whose objective is regional sustainable development, should simultaneously promote economic development, social progress and environmental protection in a unified way.

The government has gradually increased the proportion of GDP allocated to environmental protection from 0.72 percent in 1989 to 1.33 percent in 2003. Between 1998 and 2002, 580 billion yuan was invested in environmental protection and ecological construction across China, 1.8 times the total investment in this area for the 48 years between 1950 and 1997.

Environmental quality has seen great improvement thanks to years of sustained pollution control. In 2004, 41.7 percent of cities recording air quality reached the national air quality standard of Grade II; the rate for centralized disposal of urban sewage reached 42.1 percent, for hazard-free treatment of urban household garbage 58 percent, and for comprehensive utilization of solid industrial waste 53.5 percent.