Abstract: In engineering geological practice, the evidence to identify a fault as an active one is the latest time at which the fault ruptured the surface or subsurface if no other data are available. So drafting of the time criterion in a region is a key work with had better be based on both scientific and engineering safety consideration. The time criterion depends on our understanding to some extent on the periodical and repeatable features of tectonic movements. There occurred a widespread tectonic movement in late Pleistocene (about 30 thousand years B.P.) in China. The tectonic deformation have entered a new stage since then. This fact is the scientific basis for determining the time criterion. Therefore, the time criterion determined on the basis of it means that fautl activated or reactivated in the past 30 thousand years could be identified as engineering active ones in continent of China.