Primary liver cancer (PLC) is one of the common malignant tumors and the main causes of tumor death in China. Although the diagnosis and treatment technology of PLC in China has made great progress in recent years, its morbidity and mortality have been decreasing year by year, but the low early diagnosis rate and 5-year survival rate of PLC are major public health problems that need to be solved urgently in the field of chronic disease prevention and control. Effective implementation of early screening, detection, diagnosis and treatment of PLC is an important measure to improve the rates of radical treatment and survival. The combination of serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and liver ultrasound is a routine method for screening hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients with chronic liver disease; the combination of AFP and AFP-L3 and/or abnormal prothrombin can improve the early diagnosis rate of early-stage HCC; the early diagnosis rate of small hepatocellular carcinoma can be improved by Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging or its combination with computerized tomography. With the continuous promotion of hierarchical medical system and improvement of primary medical resources allocation and health service capacity in China, primary care institutions have become an important force for early screening of many cancers. Based on this context, this paper mainly discusses the development opportunities, risk challenges and future thinking of surveillance for liver cancer in primary care institutions in China, in order to provide new ideas and direction guidance for it in the future.