China is the most populous country, has one of the largest territories, has a booming economy (1), and recently has significantly changed its political leadership. As China's new top leaders begin to develop socioeconomic priorities, initiatives, regulations, policies, and legislation, it is important for them to expand the support for biodiversity conservation. China has so many ecosystem types that it has >30,000 species of vascular plants [behind only Brazil and Colombia, (2)] and ～2340 species of terrestrial vertebrates (3), >10% of the world total in both cases (2). Perhaps half of China's species are found nowhere else; these include many archaic and distinctive evolutionary lines, like giant pandas and ginkgoes (4).
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