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China’s titanium dioxide industry began with the Shanghai Huaheng Chemical Plant, established in 1956. Although it was 40 years later than the world’s first titanium dioxide plant built in Norway, through 65 years of development and under the leadership of the Party, China’s titanium dioxide industry has managed to catch up. By 2020, there were 42 manufacturers capable of producing titanium dioxide across the entire production chain, with an annual total output of over 3.5 million tons. The country is now striving to become a leader in the titanium dioxide industry. In 1957, the Tianjin Chemical Research Institute under the Ministry of Chemical Industry organized efforts to systematically research and develop production processes for pigment-grade anatase titanium dioxide. In 1958, several small-scale titanium dioxide plants for non-pigment uses were established in Tianjin, Jinan, Wuxi and other places. Between 1962 and 1963, the Tianjin Institute of Chemical Engineering built upon the experimental results regarding pigment-grade anatase titanium dioxide, carrying out industrial-scale trial production at the Shanghai Huaheng Chemical Factory and the Tianjin Tonghua Chemical Factory. These efforts passed the evaluation conducted jointly by the Ministry of Chemical Industry and the Shanghai Chemical Industry Bureau, laying the technical foundation for the production of anatase titanium dioxide using the sulfuric acid method in China. By the mid-1980s, many small titanium dioxide factories were established across the country. 108 of these enterprises were mainly located in provinces such as Henan, Guangxi, and Jiangsu, and most of them were township-owned enterprises. These enterprises are not only small in scale but also have outdated technology and equipment, poor product quality, and severe pollution from waste gases, waste liquids, and waste solids. To prevent titanium dioxide manufacturers without the necessary production capabilities from flooding the market, the Ministry of Chemical Industry introduced policies in 1988 prohibiting the establishment of new plants with a production capacity of less than 3,500 tons per year, and a licensing system for titanium dioxide production was put in place in 1991. When formulating the Seventh Five-Year Plan, the Ministry of Chemical Industry proposed a development strategy that combined the sulfuric acid process and the chlorination process, as well as concurrent investment in capital construction and technological upgrades, along with parallel efforts in technology introduction and domestic technology development. A number of titanium dioxide plants with an annual production capacity of 10,000 tons began to be constructed, and the introduction of foreign technologies also proceeded in an orderly manner. Among them, Plant 404 of the Ministry of Nuclear Industry adopted the titanium dioxide production process and engineering technology from the Czech company Polys, and built a titanium dioxide plant with an annual production capacity of 15,000 tons using the sulfuric acid method in 1993; Sichuan Chongqing Yugang Titanium Dioxide Co., Ltd. utilized the technology and equipment from the Polish Poliz Titanium Dioxide Plant to establish a titanium dioxide plant with an annual production capacity of 15,000 tons in 1995; in 1994, the Ferroalloy Plant in Jinzhou, Liaoning, built China’s first titanium dioxide production facility using the chlorination method, with an annual capacity of 15,000 tons. The digestion and absorption of introduced projects have contributed to the technological advancement and enlargement of production facilities in China’s titanium dioxide industry. The substantive development of China’s titanium dioxide industry began in 1998. According to Bi Sheng, director of the Titanium Dioxide Division at the Chemical Production Capacity Promotion Center and secretary-general of the Titanium Dioxide Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance, before the 1990s, China did not have a single titanium dioxide production facility with an annual output of 10,000 tons. The period from 1998 to 2020 was one of rapid development for the titanium dioxide industry, with its total production capacity increasing sharply year by year. By 2001, China had surpassed Japan to become the world’s second-largest producer, and by 2009 it overtook the United States to become the world’s largest producer. After years of extensive experimentation, chlorination technology has also seen significant scale-up in recent years. In particular, in 2020, the national production of titanium dioxide produced by the chlorination method reached nearly 320,000 tons, achieving \"two breakthroughs\". To date, there are 12 large-scale enterprises in China’s titanium dioxide industry with an annual production capacity of 100,000 tons or more. These companies include Longmao Baili, Pangang Vanadium-Titanium, CNNC Titanium Dioxide, Sinochem Group, Shandong Dongjia Group, Jinpu Titanium Industry, Shandong Jinhai Titanium Industry, Ningbo Xinfu, Shandong Daon Titanium Industry, Guangxi Jinmao Titanium Industry, Yunnan (Panzhihua) Dahu Tong, and Panzhihua Ti Hai (Group). At present, there are nearly 10 large-scale expansion projects under construction, with an annual total production capacity of around 1.3 million tons. If these projects are completed and put into operation within the next 1 to 2 years, the industry’s total annual production capacity will increase to 5 million to 5.1 million tons, which could significantly change the landscape of the industry. After more than 20 years of rapid development, China’s titanium dioxide industry has made significant progress in terms of technological processes, product quality, and the expansion of its industrial chain. In terms of new technologies and equipment, the acidolysis exhaust gas treatment technology developed by Wuhan Fangyuan in recent years, the technology for the recovery and comprehensive utilization of acidolysis residues developed by Hubei Shengrong Environmental Protection and Energy Saving Technology Co., Ltd., the multi-effect concentration technology and equipment for titanium melt developed by Nantong Sansheng, the waste heat utilization technology for rotary kiln exhaust gas developed by Nanjing Huadian Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Co., Ltd., the MVR low-temperature concentration technology developed by Zhongyi Lvyuan, the high-pressure filter press dehydration equipment for red gypsum produced by Guangdong Huiyun, as well as the technologies for the co-production of sulfur, titanium, iron, and calcium along with continuous acidolysis processes, have all served as examples for the technological advancement of China’s titanium dioxide industry. In terms of the development of the industrial chain, enterprises, based on their own conditions and the characteristics of their surrounding environment, gradually create the necessary conditions to pursue integrated production, thereby achieving reduced consumption and a circular development model that makes use of resources. A large number of key enterprises such as Sichuan Longmang, Shandong Dongjia, Shandong Daon, Qianjiang Fangyuan, and Jiangxi Tianguang have developed distinctive green industrial chains involving sulfur-titanium, sulfur-phosphorus-titanium, sulfur-ammonium-titanium, sulfur-iron-titanium, sulfur-titanium-gypsum-cement, and others. The improvement in the quality of titanium dioxide products is also accelerating gradually. The quality of sulfate-process rutile titanium dioxide used in coatings and plastics by a large number of enterprises such as Longmao Bailian, Shandong Dongjia, Pangang Vanadium-Titanium, and Qianjiang Fangyuan has reached or come close to the level of international top-tier products, and it has been recognized by the high-end market. This has enabled China to take another step forward on its path to becoming a leader in titanium dioxide production.