By analysing the data from the sustainable development index system on provincial level, the blue book found that the four municipalities and most of the provinces in the eastern coastal regions have higher positions in this ranking. In 2017, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Jiangsu and Chongqing had very good performances in economic development and environment protection, despite less favourable situation for the factor of resource. The top 3 positions were claimed respectively by Beijing, Shanghai and Zhejiang, whereas provinces such as Qinghai, Gansu and Xinjiang fell behind in 2017 with a very low level of sustainable development.

In the central area, Anhui was the highest ranking province, going up to the 7th place in 2017 from the 21th in 2016. All provinces except Chongqing (7th) in the western area fell out of top 10 in the overall ranking of sustainable development.

Generally speaking, China’ sustainable development on provincial level shows quite an unbalance. This is embodied by the fact that most of the provinces/municipalities have weakness with some of the five factors. For example, Beijing is in the 1st place for both the economic development and the energy consumption, but it is only the 28th place for the resource and environment. Obviously, there is a large room for cities like Beijing to improve its sustainable development level.

A Lesson for Inland Cities

The report has also analysed and ranked 100 large and middle-sized cities across the country based on the index system on municipal level.

The top 10 cities are Zhuhai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Wuhan, Changsha, Wuxi and Ningbo. As opposed to the inland cities which are usually in a relatively high level of industrialisation, these coastal cities have better environment. Apparently, cities in the central and western areas are faced with a severer challenge in environment protection.

The rankings of these cities are drawn back primarily by lower levels of resource and environment, energy consumption, waste discharge, environment protection and pollution control. A lesson city managers and stakeholders can learn from this is that they should always bear in mind sustainable development while developing the local economy.