'Two mountains' concept illuminates a sustainable future for the world
2025-08-15 09:54:24 source：Global Times
August 15, 2025
On August 15, 2005, during an inspection tour to Yucun in Anji County, East China's Zhejiang Province, Xi Jinping, then secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, put forward the concept that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets." 20 years later, the concept that is also known as the "two mountains" concept has become a core idea in Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, while building a Beautiful China has become a broad consensus and conscious action in Chinese society. This scientific conclusion has profoundly reshaped China's development trajectory, become an important guidance for building an ecological civilization and provided Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions for global sustainable development.
The "two mountains" concept offers a profound explanation of the essence of ecological civilization. The vision that "we want both lucid waters and lush mountains as well as mountains of gold and silver" emphasizes that the environment and development are not opposites but are organically unified - lucid waters and lush mountains are the foundation of survival, while mountains of gold and silver are the source of development. The idea that "we would rather have lucid waters and lush mountains than mountains of gold and silver" completely abandons the old path of sacrificing the environment for growth and scientifically defining the relationship between survival and development. "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" marks a leap in the concept of development, revealing that high-quality ecology is itself a valuable economic resource, that ecological protection can generate economic value and that ecological advantages can be directly transformed into development advantages - thus reconstructing the relationship between ecology and economy.
In the face of pressing resource constraints, environmental pollution, and ecosystem degradation, the "two mountains" concept has guided China onto a path of green development, effectively addressing the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development.
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