A recent report published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which claims China's industrial economy still lags 100 years behind the economies of Germany and Britain, has caused a huge stir among the Chinese public.

Partly because it came at a time when Chinese people are taking great pride in the remarkable progress their nation has made over the past decades, the report has drawn a great deal of attention. The accuracy of the conclusion remains unknown, but it is undeniable that China lags behind some developed countries in a variety of aspects, including its technology, craftsmanship standards, innovation capability, as well as the recycling of resources and sustainable development.

For a long time, resources for industrial production in China, whether energy or raw materials, have generally been used once and then treated as "industrial waste". It is unsustainable that these precious resources are treated this way, given that many of them are non-renewable. China's extensive industrial development model over the past three decades has resulted in it encountering resource scarcity at an early time. Worse, the untreated industrial waste and discharged polluted water have emerged as killers of the country's ecological system.