China’s educational heritage represents a profound historical accumulation of pedagogical excellence and embodies the enduring spirit of national educational traditions. The critical relationship between educational tradition and modernization constitutes a fundamental challenge for nations pursuing educational advancement. Chinese-path education modernization emerges as a contemporary reinvention of this heritage, sharing deep historical connections and intrinsic affinities. The educational heritage provides traditional roots, ideological foundations, and dynamic vitality for Chinese-path modernization, which in turn incorporates essential traditional principles including harmony in diversity, openness and inclusiveness, human-centered values, balanced development, and symbiotic coexistence. To comprehensively promote the rejuvenation of the country through education, this heritage must be organically integrated into modernization processes through four synergistic approaches: upholding Marxist principles as the guiding framework; addressing contemporary societal needs; developing nuanced modern interpretations; and creatively transforming traditional wisdom into new institutional forms. Only by grounding modernization in indigenous cultural foundations and educational traditions can China cultivate distinctive educational values, develop authentic developmental models, and ultimately contribute Chinese wisdom, paradigms, and solutions to global educational modernization.