With the further development of China's economy, the power load is growing rapidly, the grid power supply pressure is increasing, and the traditional power grid can no longer meet the growing demand for electricity. Therefore, establishing a unified and strong smart grid is the direction of China's power grid development. This paper introduces the background and definition of the smart grid and its basic information, including its characteristics and those of related technologies. It describes the current status of smart grid development in China, covering current State policy, investment and smart grid demonstration projects. It analyzes the problems existing in China's smart grid development in policy, investment, related technology research, infrastructure construction, and concept promotion. It is pointed out that in order to improve power production efficiency under the constraints of resources and environment, as well as improving power structure, and meeting the maximum economic development demand with minimum social cost, the development of China's smart grid is imperative. This work is supported by the Youth Science Fund Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51806133).