Now that many countries have set goals for reaching net zero emissions in mid-century, it is important to clarify the role of each country in achieving the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement. Here, we evaluated China’s role by calculating the global temperature impacts caused by different national emission pathways toward the net zero target. Our results showed that China’s contribution to global warming since 2005 is 0.17°C on average in 2050, with a range of 0.1°C to 0.22°C. The peak contributions of these pathways vary from 0.1°C to 0.23°C, with the years reached distributing between 2036 and 2065. The large difference in peak temperatures arises from the differences in emission pathways of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and sulfur dioxide (SO2). We further analyzed the effect of the different mix of CO2 and CH4 mitigation trajectories from China’s pathways on the global mean temperature. We found that China’s near-term CH4 mitigation reduces the peak temperature in the mid-century by 0.02°C whereas it plays a less important role in determining the end-of-the-century temperature. Early CH4 mitigation action in China is an effective way to shave the peak temperature, further contributing to reducing the temperature overshoot along the way toward the 1.5°C target. This further underscores the necessity for early CO2 mitigation to achieve the long-term temperature goal ultimately.