Ecological civilization in China: an analysis in the context of multiculturalism

China has inherited and developed Iring Fetscher's (1978) concept of ecological civilization. Cultural research on the ecological civilization of Chinese society helps choose a road map for late-developing countries. The postmodern society upholds multiculturalism, and the Chinese context makes it logically possible for China to form a culture different from the Western culture, which is the birthplace of ecological civilization. The concept of the living community between man and nature, which is composed of the special ancient local knowledge represented by the natural worldview, the heaven-human unity and the heaven-human induction, and the innovative modern ecological research represented by the socio-economic-natural complex ecosystem, is the cultural context of China. The new pattern of land and space development is based on spatial heterogeneity and the parallel development model is based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of Chinese-style modernization, which is the situational context of China. The Chinese context of ecological civilization overcomes the limitations revealed by multiculturalism in Western social practice and also prevents the risk of cultural relativism slipping into cultural conservatism. China's case reflects a different context from Western culture, which not only makes irreplaceable contributions to the global ecological civilization in practice but also proves that multiculturalism transcends Western centrism, and provides different road map choices for the ecological civilization construction of late-developing countries.