The following lists events in the year 1998 in China.
- January 10 — Deng Guangming, historian (b. 1907)
- January 28 — Lee Ya-Ching, film actress, pioneering aviator and philanthropist (b. 1912)
- February 22 — Han Youwen, Salar Muslim general and politician (b. 1912)
- March 13 — Ma Yueliang, Manchu teacher of Tai chi (b. 1901)
- April 9 — Lü Shuxiang, linguist, lexicographer and educator (b. 1904)
- April 12 — Xin Fengxia, pingju opera performer (b. 1927)
- May 3 — Xue Yue, Nationalist general (b. 1896)
- May 21 — Li Bo, phytoecologist (b. 1929)
- May 27 — Shu Tong, politician (b. 1905)
- May 28 — Chung-Yao Chao, theoretical physicist (b. 1902)
- June 27 — Tso-hsin Cheng, ornithologist (b. 1906)
- August 6 — Deng Zhaoxiang, naval officer (b. 1903)
- August 17 — Shi Zhe, military officer, diplomat, translator and interpreter (b. 1905)
- August 28 — Lu Dadong, communist revolutionary and politician (b. 1915)
- September 14
- October 7 — Ru Zhijuan, writer (b. 1925)
- October 8 — Zhang Chongren, sculptor (b. 1907)
- October 9 — Xiao Yang, politician (b. 1929)
- November 26 — M. T. Cheng, mathematician (b. 1917)
- December 5 — Cheung Tze-keung, notorious Hong Kong gangster (b. 1955)
- December 10 — Wang Ganchang, nuclear physicist (b. 1907)
- December 11 — Chen Puru, politician (b. 1918)
- December 13 — Liang Xiang, politician (b. 1919)
- December 19 — Qian Zhongshu, literary scholar and writer (b. 1910)
- December 28 — Wang Dezhao, physicist (b. 1905)