Copper and copper-based materials are widely applied to power electronics, automobile, and mechanical manufacturing as well as to high-tech manufacturing fields such as aeronautics, astronautics, telecommunications, and integrated circuits owing to their comprehensive advantages in mechanical, functional, and processing properties. As China is the greatest producer and consumer of milled copper products in the world, advanced copper-based materials are envisioned with a bright prospect in China owing to a vast Chinese market. Starting from a general description of the macrostructure and status quo of China's copper milling industry, the strengths and weaknesses of material-related development are analyzed. The development status, existing problems, and future development trend of high-strength conductive copper alloy, high-performance electronic copper foils, wear- and corrosion-resistant copper alloys, copper-based thermal management materials, and copper materials for special purposes and new energy in China are emphatically reviewed. Development ideas and suggestions are proposed including laying out frontier directions for major application needs, forming an effective interaction mechanism among production, education, research, and application, and establishing a national industrial and technological development coordination platform for copper-based materials.