Fuel quality has a significant influence on the combustion engine operation. In recent years the increasing concerns about environmental protection, energy saving, energy security and the requirements of protecting fuel injection and aftertreatment systems have been major driving forces for the Chinese fuel specification evolution. The major property changes in the evolution of Chinese national gasoline and diesel standards are introduced and the reasons behind these changes are analyzed in this paper. The gasoline fuel development from State I to State VI-B involved a decrease of sulfur, manganese, olefins, aromatics and benzene content. The diesel fuel quality improvement from State I to State VI included achieving low sulfur fuels and a cetane number (CN) increase. Provincial fuel standards, stricter than corresponding national standards, were implemented in economically developed areas in the past. Currently only Beijing is still implementing regional standards with national standards becoming increasingly stringent. The key fuel properties between China, EU and US standards are compared and discussed. The automotive fuel quality in China has reached the same level as in Europe, however the percentages of aromatics and olefins in gasoline fuel and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in diesel fuel are still higher than the limits in California standards. In addition, the applications of alternative fuels such as ethanol, methanol and biodiesel are briefly discussed. The implementation of Ethanol-gasoline grades has started in pan-China, while methanol and biodiesel will not be widely applied in the near future. Finally, future trends for the automotive fuel applications in China are analyzed and predicted.