Before Reform and Opening-up in 1978，income distribution in China’s SOEs featured an equalitarianism based “low salary” system for a long time. After 1978，the general trend of reform of salary system in SOEs is marketization，where the main task was to continue to improve a market-oriented salary distribution mechanism in order to improve enterprise efficiency. However，as SOEs have long undertaken the dual role of leading national economic development strategy and promoting social fairness，in recent years，while the reform of salary system in SOEs stressed enterprise efficiency，the policy orientation of attaching more importance to promoting social fairness was also highlighted. The general trend of reform of salary system in SOEs is striking a balance between enterprise efficiency and social fairness. For the “13th Five Year Plan” and years to come，how to strike such a balance would still be a challenge for reform of salary system in SOEs.