The study of clay minerals, the most important components of fine-grained terrigenous clastic sediments, has recently made significant progress in the South China Sea for sediments provenance and paleoclimate research. In this article, we summarized the results of previous researches of clay minerals in the sediments of the South China Sea,including the distribution of clay minerals in surface sediments and its influencing factors, their sources and transport mechanism, and their application to paleoclimate reconstruction. It is elaborated that the clay mineral assemblages changes in the geological time scale is a significant indicator of source areas and contemporaneous climate changes as well as the currents systems in the ocean. Also put forward is a discussion on problems and future perspectives in this field.