The ongoing debate surrounding the management of rangeland ecosystems has given rise to two distinct schools of theories: classical rangeland ecology and new rangeland ecology. The former advocates for "the balance of forage biomass and livestock loads according to carrying capacity of grassland," also known as equilibrium rangeland ecology. The latter argues that "the concept of carrying capacity is invalid, the dynamics of forage biomass and livestock population are determined by climate variability, and the rangeland ecosystem is fundamentally non-equilibrium," referred to as non-equilibrium rangeland ecology. To achieve sustainable management of rangeland ecosystems, proponents of the classical rangeland theory advocate for privatizing property rights of rangelands and reducing livestock numbers to maintain a balance between forage biomass and livestock loads. Meanwhile, supporters of the new rangeland theory advocate maintaining public property rights over rangelands, promoting community cooperation, and preserving livestock mobility. Bibliometric analyses indicated that the new rangeland ecologists had dominated the academic publishing in this study field, according to their overwhelming advantages in H-index, total citation, and citation of representative papers. However, numerous empirical studies have demonstrated that both equilibrium and non-equilibrium conditions coexist in all rangeland ecosystems, resulting in high heterogeneity on spatiotemporal scales. As such, it is evident that both theories possess elements that are valid as well as flawed. Consequently, a novel concept has updated the theory of classic rangeland ecology, which advocated the coexistence of non-equilibrium and equilibrium. This debate had profoundly influenced the understanding about Chinese rangeland policies. These policies were primarily grounded in classic rangeland ecology, thus have suffered a lot of harsh criticism from the advocates of the new rangeland ecology. New rangeland ecologists had negated these policies, which aimed to achieve the balancing between forage biomass and livestock loads based on the concept of ecological carrying capacity. Alternatively, they highlighted the important roles of livestock mobility and community cooperation in rangeland sustainable management. Therefore, some new rangeland ecologists propose some transformative reforms in rangeland management, such as reconstruction of public grassland use rights and removal of household fence. However, based the recent advances of this debate, China should not reconfigure these policies in a disruptive way. Future rangeland management strategies must take into account climate variability while striving to achieve a dynamic balance between forage biomass and livestock loads. It is also crucial to preserve livestock mobility. Additionally, policymakers should carefully tailor their approaches based on a comprehensive understanding of local conditions rather than implementing a "one size fits all" model when it comes to property rights and management policies.