<p>High-quality postgraduate education is an important initiative to achieve high-quality education development, the core of which lies in choosing the right policy instruments. This study analyses 43 Chinese graduate education quality policy texts based on Schneider and Ingram's policy instruments framework. It is found that the use of policy instruments for graduate education quality in China shows excessive use of authority tools, imbalanced use of capacity-building tools, and insufficient use of learning tools and incentive tools. Therefore, in the future, the selection of policy instruments for the quality of China's postgraduate education should optimise the structure and type of policy instruments to bring into play the efficacy of multiple instruments flexibly; scientifically combine multiple policy instruments to reduce the frequency of the use of authority tools; enhance the appropriateness of capacity-building tools to deepen the sustained impact of policies; and increase the use of learning tools and incentive tools to enhance the effectiveness of policy implementation.</p>