Tsinghua-UNDP report offers insight into China's human development

Tsinghua University and the United Nations Development Programme released a report in Beijing on Friday that comprehensively evaluates China's urban and regional economic and social development, as well as the costs of technological and environmental governance, from a human development perspective.

The report, titled Monitoring China's Human Development: Assessing economic and social progress, as well as environmental costs, across Chinese regions and cities, was jointly produced by the China Institute for Development Planning at Tsinghua University, the Institute for Circular Economy at Tsinghua University and the UNDP.

The report offers valuable insights into China's development achievements, emerging challenges and pathways toward sustainable development. It also makes the latest collaborative research outcome in the field of human development between Tsinghua University and the UNDP, following the release of the China Human Development Report Special Edition in 2019.

China is currently at a critical stage where multiple factors are converging, including the transformation of growth drivers, profound demographic changes, uneven enterprise development and mounting environmental pressures. Opportunities and challenges coexist, said Yang Yongheng, dean of the China Institute for Development Planning at Tsinghua University.

"As China embarks on the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), a comprehensive assessment of the country's human development progress and its sustainability is of great significance for accurately understanding the development foundation and identifying priorities for the next stage," Yang said.

"Such an assessment not only deepens our understanding of Chinese modernization, but also provides valuable lessons for countries across the Global South seeking sustainable development paths suited to their own national conditions."

The Human Development Index is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and having a decent standard of living. According to the UNDP, the index was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth.

China's HDI reached 0.797 by 2023, close to the threshold of very high human development (0.800). Hundreds of millions of people have benefited from improvements in income, education and healthcare.

As China enters the 15th Five-Year Plan period, questions surrounding sustainability, inclusion and the quality of development are becoming increasingly central to the country's vision and long-term goals, said Violante di Canossa, head of the Strategic Partnerships and Policy Team at UNDP China.

"It is increasingly important not only to assess how development progresses, but also how sustainable and inclusive such progress is over a long period of time," she said.

Di Canossa noted that the report conducts human development analysis at the prefecture-level city level, providing a much more granular picture of progress and disparities across regions.

In addition, the report introduces provincial-level estimates of the Planetary Pressures-Adjusted Human Development Index (PHDI) for the first time in China. The index demonstrates how environmental pressures are increasingly shaping the quality and sustainability of development outcomes, offering valuable insights for targeted policymaking.

"Human development and environmental sustainability can no longer be treated separately, given their deep interlinkages," Di Canossa said.

"We hope this report can contribute to ongoing policy discussions on high-quality development, regional coordination, common prosperity and ecological civilization as China enters the 15th Five-Year Plan period. We also hope we can help strengthen dialogue among researchers, policymakers, international organizations and the broader public on advancing the Sustainable Development Goals in China and beyond."

Speaking via video link, Yanchun Zhang, chief statistician at the UNDP's Human Development Report Office, insisted that the purpose of development is not simply to increase wealth, but to expand people's choices, enhance their freedom and enable them to live with greater dignity.

"The HDI is a simple yet powerful expression of this philosophy," Zhang said.

"By measuring health, education and living standards, it helps people look beyond economic growth alone when assessing a country's development progress."

The Human Development Report presents HDI for 193 countries and territories, with China among the fastest-improving and most stable performers in terms of human development, Zhang said.

She noted that in recent years, the gap between countries and territories with a very high HDI and those with a low HDI, which had previously been narrowing, has begun to widen again, indicating that global average progress does not necessarily translate into shared progress.

"Real progress is not just about restoring growth, it is about reimagining a development path where people and nature can prosper together," Zhang said.

"We believe the core of human development has always been people — their capabilities, freedoms and mobility. Faced with uncertainty, technological change and climate crises, we are not powerless. Through better research and data, stronger cooperation and more forward-looking policies, we can build a future that is more inclusive, resilient and sustainable."

Gong Pu, associate research fellow at the China Institute for Development Planning at Tsinghua University, and Jiang Meng, an associate professor at Norwegian University of Science and Technology, presented the report's key findings on behalf of the research team.

According to the researchers, the report provides a crucial basis for research on high-quality development across regions. It highlights changes in development patterns following the incorporation of carbon emissions and material footprints, and provides an important reference for advancing ecological civilization and achieving China's dual-carbon goals.

The researchers said the report also offers a systematic, multi-scale assessment of human development at the national, provincial and prefectural levels over the past decade, reflecting China's achievements in building a moderately prosperous society and advancing common prosperity while also identifying structural imbalances and regional coordination challenges that require attention in the next stage of development.

The report found that economic growth and improvements in education have been the primary drivers of China's human development progress over the past decade. As a vast developing country with a large population, China continues to exhibit significant spatial disparities in human development.

The vast majority of provinces have reached high human development levels while, at the prefectural level, the number of cities achieving high or very high human development has increased significantly over the past decade, with development spreading from eastern regions to central and western regions, and from major urban centers to surrounding areas.

At the same time, although overall development disparities nationwide have continued to narrow, regional gaps remain relatively large. Imbalances among different dimensions of development also remain prominent, and some regions continue to face substantial environmental costs, the report found.

Zhang Bingzi, a research fellow at the Development Research Center of the State Council, said the philosophy behind HDI "is highly consistent with China's people-centered development approach".

"China is now promoting investment in people, which means translating the people-centered development philosophy into concrete policy practice by focusing on enhancing human capabilities across the entire population and throughout the entire life cycle. This is of critical importance for further improving China's HDI in the future."

Wang Xuejun, a professor at the College of Urban and Environmental Sciences at Peking University, said the report authors employed a rigorous methodology and solid data analysis to assess the balance between human development achievements and environmental costs, identify key constraints and propose policy recommendations for sustainable development.

"It helps provide a more comprehensive understanding of the development status of various regions in China and offers insights into better development pathways for the future," Wang said.