Based on the research of the grassland carbon sink in China and the remote sensing data from 1982 to 2011, the total carbon storage of the grassland ecosystem in China is about 31.2 PgC, 96 % of which are stored in the soil. The vegetation carbon density of grassland is highly spatially heterogeneous due to various types of grassland and vast distribution in China. The largest grassland vegetation carbon sink in China is located in Inner Mongolia, followed by Tibet and Qinghai, while that of the six main pastoral areas accounts for 71 % of the national grassland vegetation carbon sink. However, 90 % of the natural grassland in China has degraded more or less. Effective managements and implementation of major ecological construction projects have played an important role in the recovery of grassland carbon storage, which indicates that the grassland in China has great potential for carbon sequestration.