Some Chinese academics and policy makers believe that China should implement workfare programmes to tackle welfare dependency.This paper, however, argues that workfare is not a good approach for China.Firstly, the level of public assistance in China is very low, which can hardly create a dependency culture.Secondly, many welfare bureaucrats are volunteers, who do not fully understand the objectives of social security and the rights of welfare recipients.It is evident that these welfare administrators had abused or wrongly used their power that excluded hundreds and thousands of poor people from receiving public assistance.Thirdly, China does not have welfare legislation and an independent court to protect the rights of unemployed workers.In short, before introducing workfare.The Chinese government needs to train or recruit high quality of welfare administrators as well as to establish an effective appeal system to safeguard the social security rights of its poor people.