The majority of river restoration initiatives are driven by new environmental policies. However, evaluation of management styles for ecosystem services (ESs) within river policies and their implications for restoration has been rarely investigated. This paper aims to evaluate the way in which environmental policy manages river ESs and river restoration initiatives. A content analysis-based approach applied to policy documents was undertaken on China’s River Chief (CRC) policy. ESs attributes were summarized according to categories, values, relationships, and stakeholders. Subsequently, a hierarchical evaluation indicator system, along with its graded keywords, was developed. The occurrence frequencies of these keywords in policy documents were then used to measure the policy regulatory degrees of ESs indicators. The reference values extracted from literature statistics of peer-reviewed papers served as a template to clarify the ESs management style. We found that the CRC policy primarily relied on the management of ESs categories and stakeholders, followed by ESs relationships, with extremely limited consideration of river ESs values. Moreover, the bundle of those ESs incorporated into the policy significantly differ from the typical structure of the ESs provided by rivers. For stakeholders, the CRC policy relies heavily on the authorities and the farm/business operators to manage the rivers. This case study showed a partial and pattern-mismatch management style of river ESs, which will hamper the holistic restoration of rivers. We concluded that the proposed policy document-based evaluation approach can help to identify the policy deficiency in relation to river ESs management, and river restoration possibilities.