Abstract Over the past few decades, China has made Impressive efforts to transfer Western health care technology to its health care system. The capability of the system for dealing with disease has undoubtedly been greatly Increased by these efforts. At the same time, numerous problems, related to the speed with which this change happened, have developed. Perhaps the most serious problem Is related to the Incentives of the health care system, which rewards large hospitals generously for services based on modern imported machines such as CT scanners. The resulting system is quite top-heavy: central hospitals can be quite sophisticated technologically, while the basic primary and secondary care is technological undeveloped. Other problems include poor quality of nationally made medical equipment and serious over-utilization of pharmaceuticals. There seems to be little doubt that the planning system for health care technology needs to be strengthened in China. Such a system needs access to good Information on the risks, benefits and costs of specific technologies.