The East Asian winter monsoon(EAWM)is one of the most active systems in northern hemisphere during boreal winter.The EAWM exerts an essential influence on controlling winter climate over most of China,and its interannual and interdecadal variabilities are of significant importance in predicting and inspecting winter climate over China.Based on the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data and the 160-station observational data,a comparison for 12 EAWM indices and their relations to winter temperature and precipitation over eastern China have been performed in this paper.Furthermore,the stability of the relations between EAWM indices and temperature and precipitation in El Niňo status or La Niňa status has also been detected.The results indicate that most of the EAWM indices share the same variations year-to-year,but there are some differences between them at the same time,which suggest that the focuses of each index in capturing the integrity or partial features are different.It was found that the intensity of the EAWM system reduced obviously during the last 60 years,especially in the latest 30 years with a trend of 0.25σ/10a averaging from the 10 EAWM indices.All of the 12 EAWM indices showed intense interannual variabilities and interdecadal variations during the last six decades.Although the exact periods of each index are not unified,the dominant interannual periods of ～2 to～4a and ～8 to ～9a,and the dominant interdecadal periods of ～13.3a and ～20a of the EAWM indices can be identified from a power spectrum analysis.There are ten(eight)EAWM indices correlated significantly(0.1%)with the first mode time series(PC1)of winter temperature(precipitation)over eastern China.Among them,the Siberian High index can explain 53.3% variance in winter temperature PC1,and the East Asian meridional wind index derived from the middle-high troposphere can explain 50.4% variance in winter precipitation PC1.The relationships between each EAWM index and winter temperature and precipitation over eastern China during El Niňo status and La Niňa status are not consistent completely.So,the different reference significances of each EAWM index in El Niňo status or La Niňa status should be considered carefully when used in winter climate monitoring.