Arid land agriculture in northern China is located to the north of the line from Kunlun Mountains through Qinling to Huaihe River. The agriculture of this area is rain fed in nature, so its development is greatly restricted by the water resources. And also this means there are great potentials in agricultural development in the light of the status quo of resources utilization and production practice in northern China where the level of agricultural production is low and the eco environment is execrable. As China has put emphasis on food security, eco system and economy, it is necessary for us to develop arid land in northern China with comprehensive methods and strategies. This paper recounts the research status of the arid land agriculture in China and other countries. On the basis of the analysis, the paper concludes that the same experience of the foreign countries in research and practice is that they attach importance to the combination of the amelioration of environment and the increase of crop output. Remarkable achievements have been gained in these aspects: 1) under conditions of water scarcity, most of the countries paid more attention to the collocation of the water and soil resources, especially to the durative increase of the efficiency of water use; 2) in the past several years many countries increased the level of mechanization and got rapid development of the research on the industrialization of technique. The production efficiency is 2.5 times as much as that of ten years ago; and 3) the benign circulation between the mechanization and industrialization of technique has been formed. At the same time, Chinese arid land agriculture has also gained great achievements. Firstly, on the basis of the 5 first level districts and 57 second level districts, the structure of agricultural products and planting system which are suitable for different types of arid land have been established in China. Secondly, both the protection and reasonable exploitation of the renewable resources and the artificial replacement of nonrenewable resources have made rapid progress. For the future development of China's arid land, we have to recognize the demerits of our strategies. So finally the strategies of the development of arid land agriculture in northern China are put forward.