Music education assessment is the assessment of students' learning outcomes. There is a close link between music teaching and assessment. For a long time, music educators have explored the system of music education assessment, and they have drawn on interdisciplinary technology to continuously improve assessment strategies and methods. Since the 21st century, research on music education assessment in China has made a series of breakthroughs and progress, but there has been a lack of review. In view of this, this study follows the PRISMA protocol to retrieve 581 Chinese-language research articles from CNKI (one of the world's largest Chinese academic literature databases)and employs CiteSpace to perform keyword clustering analysis. In this research，we found the assessment of music education in China has gone through four stages in 21st century: "the preliminary exploration period after the New Curriculum Reform (2000-2011)" "the period of fluctuating development based on Music Curriculum Standards (2011-2016)" "the rapid construction period under the background of National Education Quality Assessment (2016-2020)" and "reform period of aesthetic education assessment focusing on core competencies (2020-2024)" .There are four research hot spots in the music education assessment area: National Music Education Quality Assessment in China, international experience in music education assessment, a diversified assessment system for music education, and music teaching and assessment. Music education assessment research in China has made certain breakthroughs in "quantity", but there is still a problem of polarization in research quality. In future research on music education assessment, it is necessary to pay close attention to enhancing the educational assessment ability of music teachers, forming an assessment system for Chinese music education, and establishing a mechanism for applying assessment results. We believe that research on music education assessment in China will become better in the future.