Editor's note: This 100-episode podcast explains how China really works. Exploring Xi Jinping Thought and how the Chinese president's approach has shaped the governance of China, the podcast decodes the country's growth story to help you truly understand its success and challenges.

Building an ecological civilization is vital to sustain the Chinese nation's development. We must realize that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets and act on this understanding, implement our fundamental national policy of conserving resources and protecting the environment, and cherish the environment as we cherish our own lives. We will adopt a holistic approach to conserving our mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, and grasslands, implement the strictest possible systems for environmental protection, and develop eco-friendly growth models and ways of life. We must pursue a model of sustainable development featuring increased production, higher living standards, and healthy ecosystems. We must continue the Beautiful China initiative to create good working and living environments for our people and play our part in ensuring global ecological security.

We will get everyone involved in improving the environment and address environmental issues at the root. We will continue our campaign to prevent and control air pollution to make our skies blue again. We will speed up prevention and control of water pollution, and take comprehensive measures to improve river basins and offshore areas. We will strengthen the control of soil pollution and the restoration of polluted soil, intensify the prevention and control of agricultural pollution from non-point sources, and take measures to improve rural living environments. We will improve the treatment of solid waste and garbage.

We will enforce stricter pollutants discharge standards and see to it that polluters are held accountable. We will improve our systems for credibility assessment based on environmental protection performance, for mandatory release of environmental information, and for imposing severe punishment for environmental violations. We will establish an environmental governance system in which government takes the lead, enterprises assume main responsibility, and social organizations and the public also participate. We will get actively involved in global environmental governance and fulfill our commitments on emissions reduction.

(Source: Extract from Xi Jinping's report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, October 18, 2017.)

This episode is presented by Shen Ting.