Analysis of China’s legislation on soil contamination in the light of the realization of an ecological civilization

After several years of population growth, urbanization, rapid economic and growing depletion of natural resources, China’s environmental related challenges are nearing a tipping point. Following the ideal of creating an ecological civilization, China is on its way to greening socio-economic development. In fact, the ecological civilization is the primary conceptual key used by the People’s Republic of China capable of providing a coherent framework for adjustments to socio-economic development in the 21st century to allow people to live in health within the eco-environmental boundaries of the Earth during the current geological era of the Anthropocene. After delineating the features of the ecological civilization, this paper aims to analyze the legal regime of contaminated lands in China as outlined by the 2018 Soil Contamination Law in the light of making a stable and prosperous ecological civilization. Besides that, this paper examines the statutory definition of soil contamination under the law describing the environmental legislative frameworks.