China's current criminal law adopts a "roundabout blows" approach to punish forging and tampering with archives, i.e. to curb such acts and punish the perpetrators by combating crimes such as the use of false identity documents, impersonation, abuse of authority and forgery of official documents, certificates and seals of state organs. The "roundabout blows" approach has positive significance in regulating the act of forgery and tampering with archives, but it also has the shortcomings of failing to independently evaluate the act of forgery and tampering with archives in criminal law, relying heavily on related crimes for its effectiveness, and failing to fully comply with the principle of criminality. The only way to effectively regulate such acts is to add the crime of forging or tampering with archives through legislation. The offence should be categorised as a crime against the order of social administration; in terms of the description of the crime, a combination of citation and description of the crime should be adopted; in terms of the statutory penalty, reference should be made to the crime of unauthorised sale or transfer of state-owned archives.