Episodic dune formations during the Quaternary are found in many deserts of China.The causes of desert expansions on different time scales are not the same. Desert extension atabout 1.1 and 0.9 Ma ago were the response to the active tectonic movements, whereas the de-sert evolutions on the ten-thousand years time scale were the response to the orbital scale climaticchanges. Spatial scale studies on desert evolution indicate that desert margins shifted greatly dur-ing the last glacial maximum (LGM) and the Holocene optimum, its changing from 125°E of theLGM to 105°E of the climatic optimum. Historical desertification in the semiarid China is not a re-sponse to climate drought but largely associated with the human impacts (mainly over-cultivation)since about 2300 years ago, which leads to the reworking of the underlying LGM sands.