Linking the Un Sdgs and Sustainable Development Progress : The Case of China

By using the time series data from 1990 to 2019, this study examines the sustainable development (SD) progress performed by China to achieve the 2030 Agenda. Through the extended factor analysis (FA) with the principal component analysis (PCA), the sustainable development index (SDI), including each economy, society, and environment subclasses SDI, are derived, and the contribution and weight of each sustainable development goal (SDG) to the SDI is calculated. The main findings are: (i) A progressively improving SDI is derived, supporting considerate achievement of China’s SD policies; (ii) The SDI trend is quite similar to that of per capita GDP, implying that the state of economic development measured by per capita GDP well approximates the degree of SD; (iii) Most of the goals, especially those in the economy and society subclasses, show a continuous improvement over the period and contribute to the improvement of China’s SDI. However, it is still relatively fragile in the environment subclass and needs to be further strengthened. Therefore, in order to achieve 2030 Agenda, China should continue to strengthen the construction of ecological civilization