The work aims to revicw and appraise the basic course of the seventy years of Chinese design theory and its role changes,and examine the role and influence of design theory on design from the perspective of design criticism. Through a retropect of the scventy years of development of design theory, a macro-level revicw of the roles, functions, and influences in different periods is made. It is pointed out that in the development process of design theory disciplines, in addition to the limitations and understanding of political, economic, cultural and historical conditions, institutions, individual experts and disciplines have also become factors that afect the development of Chinese design theory. Through the analysis of the 70 years of development of Chinese design theory,the role and identity discourse of design have been re-recognized and defined in three different stages, and the problems are analyzed from the perspective of design criticism.