Abstract: As part of the process of global modernization, Chinese modernization has both commonality and individuality in evolution. Ensuring people’s well-being plays an important role in economic promotion and efficiency improvement, income distribution and rights protection, demand guidance and capacity training in the process of Chinese modernization. This paper constructs a comprehensive analysis framework for modernization with ensuring people’s well-being as its core, and finds that after the “static expenditure and growth-oriented” stage, China has entered a new “dynamic investment and sharing-oriented” stage, which has promoted the rapid economic development, rational social distribution and the improvement of personal capability. However, China still faces the challenges in modernization which includes the selection of investments, the reform of institutions and the direction of Chinese modernization. Therefore, we should start from the aspect of ensuring people’s well-being, and overcome the challenges in the selection of investments with extensive investments in human capital. In addition, we should cope with the dilemma of the reform of institutions in ensuring people’s well-being with a high-quality social security system, and consolidate the direction of Chinese modernization with the development prospects of common prosperity.