Abstract: Since the founding of New China in 1949, China has made a lot of attempts and practices in the field of social governance. The change of social governance has gone through three stages with different characteristics, namely "revolutionary" social governance, "control" social governance, "management" social governance. Since 2012, social governance in the new era has put more emphasis on "governance-oriented", and has made outstanding achievements. The above four stages are interrelated, reflecting the development of social governance in response to the needs of economic and social change. China has also shaped social governance with Chinese characteristics and accumulated experience of social governance.