The increase in evapotranspiration and changes in precipitation patterns resulted in the intensification of drought in certain regions under global warming. Northeast China (NEC),located in the mid-high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere,is one of the regions mostly influenced by global warming. This research evaluated the characteristics and potential risks of droughts over NEC using the multi-scalar standardized precipitation and evapotranspiration index (SPEI). The results indicated that: 1) Annual precipitation showed non-significant decrease trend (4. 51mm/10a) in most areas over NEC. Average annual temperature increased with a significant warming rate of about 0. 31℃ /10a for the entire NEC in the last 52 years. In a word,the sum efforts of the precipitation and the temperature led to an obvious drought trend in NEC. 2) Five spatially well-defined sub-regions were identified,namely,the southern NEC,the eastern Inner Mongolia,the eastern Heilongjiang,the northern NEC and the Changbai Mountains. Each sub-climate region had its own features related with the temporal periodicity of drought conditions. 3) Except the Changbai Mountains,the other ones showed obviously drying trend. The abrupt changes occurred mostly in 1990s. It was a crucial task to carry out an adequate spatial division according to drought behavior for drought monitoring. Therefore,the results obtained in this study will be helpful in the development of mitigation strategies,water resource management and forecasting potential drought hazards within climatically homogeneous areas.