Abstract: China has been recognized as one of the countries that suffer most from desertification in the world. After decades of unremitting efforts, China has made remarkable achievements in desertification combating, and won wide acclaim from the international community. In the new historical period, China's desertification combating is still facing severe challenges. There are important issues to be addressed such as how to determine the reasonable scale of ecological construction under the constraints of resource carrying capacity, protect and upgrade the existing sand-fixing vegetation, restore and reestablish ecosystem in desert regions, scientifically evaluate the service function of desert ecosystem, handle the contradiction between resource utilization and ecological protection, develop the economy and promote the sustainable development in desert regions. On the basis of extensive investigation and in-depth analysis of the key desertification provinces in northern China, this paper summarized the achievements of China in desertification combating, and put forward some misunderstandings and problems that need to be paid attention to in desertification combating at present, and put forward concrete suggestions on the general principles of desertification combating, sustainable management of land, evaluation of governance effectiveness, governance models and measures, development of sand industry, scientific research and international cooperation in China in the future.