Abstract: This paper reviews the recent progress in the studies of effects of the Tibetan Plateau's thermal forcing on the rainband and moisture transport pattern and their decadal variability in eastern China in the four respects: (1) variations in the thermodynamic process of the three-ladder terrain in China and seasonal advance of the monsoonal rainband, (2) thermal forcing of the TP's land-air process and monsoonal vapour transport pattern, (3) cooling effect of the TP's snowcover on the distribution of moisture transport and rainband in eastern China, and (4) the relations of changes in the TP's apparent heat source and decadal variation in monsoonal rainband as well as the possible modulation.The major research results are concluded as: (1) The special three-ladder terrain in western China intensifies the thermal contrast between the land and the ocean. In particular, the cascade of western China's elevated lands with the seasonal variations in thermal forcing extending toward the northeast seems to act as a "dynamic attractor" driving the monsoonal rainband to move to the northwest.(2) The decreases/increases in the TP's heat source could lead to the anomalies in the pathway and strength of vapour transport from the low-latitude oceans to the continents, regulating changes in East Asian monsoons and the spatial-temporal evolvement of rainfall in China.During the TP's strong and weak heating years, the monsoonal precipitation patterns in China tend to be characterized as "North floods-South droughts" and "North droughts-South floods", respectively. As a strong precursor signal, the anomalies of heating over the TP result in distinctive patterns of moisture transport in the East and South Asian regions and summer precipitation in China.(3) The mid-lower reaches of the Yangtze River are a distinctive confluent area of southward and northward air flows, where the differences in summertime column vapour fluxes between winter high and low snow cover years of the TP-key area were in a similar pattern of correlation vector between the TP's summer heat source and vapour transport fluxes. The winter TP snow cover condition might significantly affect the structure of subsequent summer moisture transport for the Meiyu rainfall in the reaches of the Yangtze River. (4) The patterns of the inter-decadal variability in China's precipitation are generally identified with the pattern of "southern flooding and northern drought" as well as trends of turning wet in the west over the last decades. In association with the trends in the TP's spring apparent heat source rising again after a fall in recent 10 years, a turning point could be expected in the eastern China's precipitation patterns.