Abstract: The development of a digital ecological civilization is not only an inevitable choice of the Chinese path to modernization, but also an innovative engine for high-quality development along this path. With its inherent requirements and value goals, the Chinese path to modernization sets the civilizational direction for the development of a digital ecological civilization. Guided by the distinctive features and essential requirements of the Chinese path to modernization, the development of a digital ecological civilization faces several challenges: the difficulty of integrating digitalization and greening in an innovative way; tensions between top-down systematic planning and differentiated local experiments; conflicts between the logic of technological governance and that of humanistic values; and the need to better coordinate independent exploration with global competition and cooperation. To address these issues, it is necessary to fully leverage the holistic governance advantages of the Chinese path to modernization, refine typical models of digital ecological practice, promote deep integration of technological rationality and humanistic rationality, build a discourse system with Chinese characteristics, and advance the Chinese approach together with global cooperation on the basis of civilizational foundations, thereby guiding the digital ecological civilization toward leapfrog development.