Understanding the formation and evolution of sandy deserts in China is critical for unraveling the mechanisms of hyperaridity in mid-latitude Asia and their broader impacts. This review synthesizes recent progress in paleoenvironmental reconstructions across China's major sandy deserts. In situ sedimentary archives from desert centers reveal a three-stage evolutionary pattern involving desert initiation, expansion, and final stabilization. Current evidence indicates that the Taklimakan Desert initiated no later than similar to 3.4 Ma, much earlier than the Badain Jaran (similar to 1.1 Ma) and Tengger (similar to 0.9 Ma) deserts. This temporal-spatial heterogeneity reflects the interplay among factors including hyperaridity, sediment supply, wind-regime dynamics, and regional geomorphic control. Following their formation, these deserts underwent substantial landscape and hydroclimate changes on orbital timescales, alternating between fluvial-lacustrine dominance during humid phases and aeolian activity during dry phases. Despite broadly similar wet-dry fluctuations, the forcing mechanisms differ: western deserts respond mainly to mid-latitude westerly variability, whereas eastern deserts are more influenced by the Asian monsoon. Future work should establish robust chronologies for drilling cores from desert interiors and integrate these in situ records with dust archives from downwind regions. This source-to-sink approach is essential for clarifying the timing, mechanisms, and ecological impacts of sandy desert evolution in continental interiors.