Since the start of the industrial revolution, the manufacturing industry has been essential for economic growth but has also contributed to environmental pollution problems. The United Nations declared the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda to make sure that the well-being of the global environment is taken care of alongside the expansion of the world economies. As the leading manufacturing country worldwide, studying the evolution of China’s green development policies in manufacturing has significant implications for pollution management in manufacturing in other countries. This research analyzes China’s legal and policy documents on green development in the manufacturing industry based on planning objectives and actual effects with qualitative content analysis. It divides them into four periods: the exploring period (1949–1977), the formal establishment period (1978–2001), the improvement and strengthening period (2002–2011), and the comprehensive improvement period (2012 to present). Although the Chinese government has made progress in implementing green development policies, it still faces many challenges: (1) compatibility between economic development and environmental protection needs to be strengthened; (2) primarily command-and-control based policy structure needs to be reformed; (3) collaboration of multi-departmental management system needs to be enhanced. These challenges are the primary obstacles to China’s manufacturing industry achieving its environmental goals. The future policies for the green development of the manufacturing industry should focus on three aspects: (1) aligning environmental and manufacturing policies in setting strategic objectives and benchmarks; (2) concentrating on the systemic nature of policies and the interdependence of policy tools; (3) enhancing processes for policy creation, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.