"A beautiful China requires a sound and healthy ecological environment as a foundation," said Gao Jixi, Director of the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences in a recent interview with Beijing Review during the ongoing session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body.

"The people should have a nice living environment alongside the growing prosperity of our country," said Gao, a CPPCC member.

Gao claimed that to a great extent, the current environmental problems are related to an irrational industrial structure. He stressed that the most important step for building a beautiful China is promoting the adjustment of that industrial structure and the upgrading of technological progress.

As the current development model of China relies too heavily on land resources, damage to the environment is inevitable, Gao said. To change the situation, high-grade and advanced technologies are needed to increase the output per unit of land. The higher the output, the less land is needed for development, thus lowering the damage to the environment. When more land is left in its natural state, the environment becomes much cleaner.

The promotion of education in rural areas is another key factor for building a beautiful China, said Gao, who is also a member of the China Zhi Gong Party, one the country's eight non-Communist parties. 

He added that on one hand, education helps villagers to enhance the environmental awareness; on the other hand, villagers can only move from rural to urban areas and prosper with the help of education. The output per unit of land is much higher in cities and is more suitable for human habitation. In addition, improvement of the educational level of peasants is one of the important bases for the upgrading of industrial structure.

Gao, an expert in soil protection, is currently working on a project that draws a "red line" for China's ecological safety, which he said can be seen as one of the bases for building a beautiful China.

By drawing the red line, China can protect the land for ecological protection and leave them for later generations. It could also help China build a benign ecological pattern to support the sustainable social and economic development.

At present, the project's pilot program is being conducted in four provinces and autonomous regions, respectively: Jiangxi Province, Hubei Province, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.