Trends in the evolution of sustainable development research in China: a scientometric review

Because of the extensive attention of global scholars on the sustainable development in China, much research has been published over the past 30 years. Based on the 12,635 journal papers from the Web of Science database, we explore the trends in the evolution of China's sustainable development research by a knowledge graph. The result indicates that the attention of China's sustainable development research increased exponentially during 1991-2021, and it continues to shift from a macroperspective to the exploration of specific methods and implementation paths. During 2001-2005, China's sustainable development research developed rapidly and formed a complete cluster structure. In addition, China's sustainable development research has experienced three stages and two topic drifts. Staged development and topic drifts lead to a wide range of disciplinary drifts. In general, the trends in the evolution of China's sustainable development research mainly focus on three aspects: research methods, research scope, and theoretical innovation. China's sustainable development provides a case or a path for other developing countries. Economic incentives and policy promotion remain important measures to promote sustainable development.