Point pattern analysis, i.e., spatial point pattern analysis (SPPA) is a tool used in ecological pattern research and has recently become increasingly popular in ecology. To better understand SPPA research and its application in China, in this review we examined articles regarding SPPA published from 1996 to 2015 in China, which was based on a summary of the research progress, using steps and key points of SPPA. It was found that most articles focused on application research. Although there were extensive study objects, including forests, shrubs, grasslands, and landscapes, trees in forest communities were the main focus in all these application studies. Fundamental studies were found to be underdeveloped, such as studies regarding summary statistics and null models or point process models in SPPA, and the development of specific software packages for SPPA. Two important problems were found in SPPA applications: Firstly, although there are many alternatives, researchers preferred single summary statistics and only selected the K-function or its transformations; and secondly, although selecting null models as null hypotheses was a key step in SPPA, more than half of the research examined did not specify explicit null models. Therefore, it is recommended that different types of summary statistics are used to capture detailed spatial pattern structures, and the ecological questions or hypotheses should be clearly stated and correctly translated into statistical language, i.e., the null model and tests. Vertical layers and different generations should also be considered when studying systems with complex spatial structures, such as in tropical rainforests and subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forests. To enhance basic SPPA applications, these aspects discussed should be strengthened.