Professor Fangzhu Zhang presented her work about ‘The role of the local government in china’s urban sustainability transition’. This paper adopts a modified framework of the multi-level perspective to unpack the mechanisms of urban sustainability transition in China. Through a case study of the role of the local government in solar development in Wuxi city, it develops two arguments. First, the evolving alignments between niche, regime, and landscape processes of the socio-technical systems of Chinese cities are mediated by conflicts between local governments and their upper-level counterparts as they share power over urban development. Second, instead of being identified as either regime supporters or niche advocates, Chinese local governments are best described as embodying both roles in urban sustainability transition as they struggle to balance their economic and environmental objectives. This research points to a need to examine sustainability transition in Chinese cities with attention to the leadership of the local government in aligning the actions of various actors.