Environmental sociology and the sociology of natural resources constitute two research traditions regarding the interactions between societies and the natural world. While discussion of the relationships between these two fields is largely restricted to the United States, their implications for developing disciplines focused on environment and society issues in other countries have seldom been addressed. In this article we introduce the dialogue between environmental sociology and the sociology of natural resources into the context of China, where environmental sociology is being established as an important academic subdiscipline. We suggest that with a transdisciplinary orientation, environmental sociology in China holds promise for integrating environmental and natural resource sociologies in responding to China's strategic goal of building a “resource-efficient and environment-friendly” society.