In the course of booming economic growth based on mass production and consumption, China has been discharging an enormous amount of wastes giving rise to a wide range of environmental impacts. The method of economy-wide material flow analysis (EW-MFA) is one of the effective tools to examine and assess the metabolic performance of physical economies, but relevant researches in China most focus on throughput but rarely concern utilization of recycling resource and environmental impact. This paper analyzes the characteristics of resource utilization and environmental impact for the years 1990-2005 using the indicators derived from EW-MFA. The Ration of Recycled Material (RRM) is added as the new indicator in order to be in accordance with the need of circular economy being promoted in China. Finally some deficiencies of EW-MFA are pointed out. China is experiencing phenomenally booming economic growth both in its speed and size. Conventional economic and social activities based on mass resource input lead on increasingly enormous amount of wastes and a wide range of environmental problems from resource extraction and waste disposal. As a result, Circular Economy concept has been promoted actively and interpreted as a comprehensive, urgent, and long-term state policy guideline. The transition from a so- called mass-production, mass-consumption and mass-disposal society to a resource-saving and environment-friendly society is a priority issue on the agenda for economical and environmental policies of Chinese government. The method of economy-wide material flow analysis (EW- MFA) is internationally recognized as an effective accounting approach to examine the mass of materials flowing through national economy, and quantify the metabolism of physical economy in the field of sustainability and industrial ecology (1,2) . Based on the principle of mass conservation, this type of tool accounts systematically for all the flows of materials entering, leaving and accumulating within an economy and provides a complete and quantitative overview of physical indicators for the measurement of economic and environmental sustainability. Because the accounts are in physical units, EW-MFA is supposed to form a physical complement to the monetary system of national accounts (3) . In previous articles, relevant researches in China usually focus on material throughput but rarely concern utilization of recycling resource and environmental impact. This paper classifies materials entering Chinese economy into three types and then presents the characteristics of resource input and environmental impact for the years 1990-2005 using the indicators derived from EW-MFA based on more than 3000 items of data at national level. In view of the deficiency for the utilization of recycling resources existing in present researches, the Ratio of Recycled Material (RRM) is added as the new indicator in order to be in accordance with the need of circular economy being promoted in China. Finally some weakness in indicators derived from EW-MFA is discussed.