Abstract: This paper gives a view in retrospect of hydropower dam safety management by the Chinese government since 1980s of 20th century, focusing on the periodic dam safety inspection and its result. The practice proves that the periodic dam safety inspection be one of effective means to strengthen the dam safety monitoring and management and raise the dam safety level. Along with China’s reform and opening up campaign, significant changes have taken place in China’s power industry structure, in which the previous electric power sector mixing up functions of the government and enterprise has been remodeled into different power industry enterprises separating government function from enterprise management. And the responsibility for dam safety has been rested on dam owners, i.e., he who owns a dam should assume responsibility of ensuring safety of the dam. As ensuring safety of dams is a part of public safety, not only should dam owners take the responsibility for dam safety, but the government should also have accountability to carry out effective supervision. The paper also introduces the current development of the Large Dam Safety Supervision Center in dealing with information and establishing information network, and the unremitting effort in raising the level of China’s hydropower dam safety management by applying the state of the art.