Abstract: The 15th Five-Year Plan period represents a crucial phase in China’s transition from a major sports country to a global sports power. Guided by a holistic approach, a multidimensional examination of the historical mission and cultural significance of inheriting and developing China’s ethnic traditional sports－from historical, philosophical, artistic, and ethical perspectives－constitutes a defining mission for the discipline during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. Findings indicate that in the new era, China’s ethnic traditional sports continue to uphold their historical mission－strengthening cultural identity, preserving ecological wisdom, and regenerating symbolic value－yet they also face four intertwined structural challenges: a break in the succession of practitioners, imbalanced governance mechanisms, cultural misalignment with modernity, and the erosion of the cultural ecosystem. To address these challenges, a “Core-Support-Extension” three-dimensional development strategy has been proposed for China’s ethnic traditional sports during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. Key measures include: reshaping the responsibility and identity of inheritors to resolve the identity crisis; establishing a diversified and composite governance mechanism to shift from administrative dominance to effective co-governance; exploring a “re-embedding” development path to overcome mismatches with modernity; setting “transcendent goals” to construct a new cultural ecosystem and mobilize social forces and collaborative networks; building an independent knowledge system to advance theoretical innovation through interdisciplinary integration; and strengthening cultural confidence to deepen the sense of community for the Chinese nation.