Green development

Located in the hinterland of the Yangtze River Delta, Anji county in Zhejiang has a vegetation coverage rate of 96 percent. At the entrance to Yu village of Anji, a sentence is written on a stone tablet: "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets."

This is the origin of the concept of "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets".

On Aug 15, 2005, Xi, then-secretary of the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee, visited Yu village and put forward the concept for the first time.

The village once developed a "stone economy" by selling high-quality limestone mined from mountains. Yu was covered in dust and smoke all year round. At the beginning of the 21st century, the village shut down all its cement plants and mines to improve the environment.

During his visit, Xi said, "It is a brilliant move for you to shut down the mines.

"We used to say that we wanted both lucid waters and lush mountains, as well as mountains of gold and silver. In fact, lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets."

A few days later, he published a commentary in a column for Zhejiang Daily, pointing out that lucid waters and lush mountains can bring mountains of gold and silver, but mountains of gold and silver can't buy lucid waters and lush mountains. The two have contradictions, but can be dialectically unified at the same time.

Guided by this concept, Yu village formed a new type of rural ecological economy, enabling it to attract tourists and develop agriculture at the same time.

In an interview with Xinhua in October, Wang Yucheng, the Yu village Party chief and head of the village committee, said Yu is a direct beneficiary of the concept of "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets," with villagers' per capita disposable income rising sevenfold in the past decade.

The concept of "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" opened a new path for Zhejiang's development.

In 2019, the province passed the acceptance test for the pilot project of national ecological province construction. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the level of public satisfaction with the ecological environment in Zhejiang has increased for 11 consecutive years.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, Xi has summarized and interpreted the concept on many occasions.

In 2013, he put forward the theory of "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets," featuring coordination between conservation and development, on the international occasion for the first time.

In October 2015, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee put forward a philosophy of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development for the first time.

In 2017, the concept was written into the CPC Constitution.

The concept promotes economic development and ecological conservation in China at the same time, and injects positive energy into the harmonious coexistence between man and nature on a global scale.