China now faces the three hard truths of thirsting for more oil, relying heavily on coal, and ranking first in global carbon dioxide (CO<inf>2</inf>) emissions. Given these truths, two key questions must be addressed to develop a low-carbon economy: how to use coal in a carbon-constrained future? How to increase domestic oil supply to enhance energy security? Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) may be a technological solution that can deal with today's energy and environmental needs while enabling China to move closer to a low-carbon energy future. This paper has been developed to propose a possible CCS roadmap for China. To develop the roadmap, we first explore major carbon capture opportunities in China and then identify critical CCS-enabling technologies, as well as analyze their current status and future prospects. We find that coal gasification or polygeneration in combination with CCS could be a nearly unbeatable combination for China's low-carbon future. Even without CCS, gasification offers many benefits: once coal is gasified into syngas, it can be used for many different purposes including for alternative fuels production, thereby increasing the domestic oil supply and the flexibility of the energy system. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd.