This work was aimed to comprehensively evaluate the potential for sustainable development of China's shale gas industry. It will contribute to the sustainable development of China's energy and economic. Factors of resource, technology, economy and environment were selected to develop the DPSIR framework evaluation indicators in system for shale gas based on the previous research. Next, The PPFCI (projection pursuit fuzzy clustering model) technique was developed by combining the projection pursuit model with a fuzzy clustering iterative model. So that it can deal with the multi-source, high-dimensional, fuzzy data of the proposed evaluation indicators. And then, the RAGA (accelerated genetic algorithm based on real coding) algorithm was developed to run the PPFCI technique. The results show that core technical capability, investment in projects of prevention of geological disasters, and ecological environment damage indicators were the key factors affecting the sustainability of China's shale gas industry. The potential for sustainable development of China's shale gas industry was relatively low. And it was unbalanced in different provinces. The potential for sustainable development of the southwest region was better than the northwest region. Among them, the development of Sichuan was more stable than Chongqing, with a 99% probability of maintaining a stable and sustainable development state, while Chongqing province has a 15%-20% probability to fluctuate towards the poles.