China formally joined the Washington Accord, which symbolized that engineering education accreditation system of China has been recognized by the international engineering community, achieved international substantive equivalence, and entered a new stage of development. The complexity of higher engineering education quality determines that the quality governance of higher engineering education must have rich theoretical and practical connotations. After joining the Washington Accord, China has the strengths of system, law and institution, and weaknesses of insufficient innate governance capacity, low level of internationalization and low degree of scientization; ushers in a new era and new vision for the development of higher engineering education, and faces the challenges of integrating international rules and regulations and periodic qualification inspection, in carrying out the quality governance of higher engineering education. It is imperative for China to systematically define and establish governance objectives, subjects, objects and approaches, explore the quality governance model of higher engineering education with Chinese characteristics, so as to lay the foundation for deep participation in the governance of global higher engineering education.