Abstract: China has initially established a large-scale and complex multi-pillar pension system with a wide coverage and the participation of multiple stakeholders. However, overall, the Chinese pension system still faces a series of challenges. Especially against the backdrop of the increasing risk of population aging, the Chinese pension system faces a long-term contradiction between supply and demand. The most prominent challenge is the structural imbalance of the pension system. The first-pillar basic pension funds is overly dominant, while the accumulation of the second- and third-pillar pensions is limited. It is necessary to further clarify the functional positioning of the multi-pillar pension system. The first-pillar basic pension funds should be positioned to guarantee basic living, the second-pillar occupational pension should be aimed at providing workers with a higher level of retirement benefits through deferred wage income, and the third-pillar individual pension should focus on encouraging individuals to voluntarily make retirement savings through institutional arrangements such as tax incentives. In the future, It is advisable to consider gradually phasing out the individual accounts in the basic pension insurance system and establishing a fully pay-as-you-go model as the first-pillar of the pension system, unify occupational annuities and enterprise annuities into an occupational pension system, and clarify the portability and connection mechanisms between the second- and third-pillar pensions. By doing so, we can explore the coordinated connection mechanisms and specific paths of the three-pillar pension system, with a view to providing theoretical references and practical guidance for the improvement and development of China's multi-pillar pension system.