Beautiful China: Reprioritizing Cultural Ecology Discourse in the Middle Kingdom Today

In the context of the global environmental crisis of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, environmental aesthetics reflects the research and practice of the international community in building a harmonious balance between the natural environment and the life of society. The emphasis on the beauty of the environment in a large number of ancient Chinese books and works of art shows that environmental aesthetics is not a new concept in the Middle Kingdom, and that the aesthetic value of the environment was long recognized in ancient China. Using the example of traditional Chinese gardens, the article explains the concept of the ‘unity of Heaven and humanity’ and its application in the ancient and modern Chinese aesthetics of the human environment. The article is relevant to the Russian specialized reader because China has recently witnessed an unprecedented attention to the issues of ecological balance, cultural ecology and cultural environmental aesthetics. As is customary in China, the strategic long-term program has been developed in this area, which envisages the preservation, development and, if necessary, restoration of the natural and cultural environment of the traditional for Chinese history type. The program is characteristically called Beautiful China.