There is a growing, although still far from comprehensive, literature within China on the impacts of climate change in urban areas; also an evolving policy framework at national level to address these concerns and an increased interest in climate change adaptation from many local governments. This paper summarizes the urban risks and vulnerabilities highlighted by the literature, and reviews central and local government responses. It then assesses policy response, including how this considers vulnerability and future risks, formulates an adaptation strategy, engages stakeholders and assesses adaptive capacity. This shows how the Chinese system limits the influence on climate change adaptation of residents and small businesses, and of social scientists. The reasons for this include the tendency to use climate change as an economic growth engine (and GDP growth remains the most important factor for assessing local government officials’ performance), little provision for participation in policy-making, and weak post-implementation evaluation once a policy has been scaled up at national level. These have affected the quality of evidence-based policy-making and make it difficult to draw lessons from unsuccessful practice.