C cycling of soils is a critical process of Earth surface system closely related to global climate change. This review paper summarizes the main achievements of studies on C cycling of paddy soils of China while highlighting the global trends. C cycling processes and the C footprints have been increasingly characterized by means of molecular micro-biology in conjunction with C and N isotopes tracingm ethodologies. Soil productivity and the ecological services are being focused when dealing with C sequestration and mitigation in agriculture. Long-term ecosystem experiments are increasingly involved in monitoring and modeling C cycling and the dynamics. While many studies of C sequestration have demonstrated well the C storage and stock in paddy soils,much attention have been paid to C sequestration processes in scale of micro-aggregates regarding the formation,turnover and the physical protection and trans formation of C input to paddies.