Since the release and implementation of the Outline of the National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2010-20), Sino-foreign cooperative education has achieved great progress, gradually entering a new phase of high-level model development. At the same time, the profound conflicts and issues accumulated over the years at existing Sino-foreign cooperative educational institutions and programs have yet to be resolved. Quality improvement has become a distinctive theme in the new phase of development for Sino-foreign cooperative education. It is necessary to bring forth new ideas in terms of the concept of quality and quality standards in Sino-foreign cooperative education commensurate with its new phase of development, endeavoring to establish a quality assurance system and corresponding operating mechanisms for Sino-foreign cooperative education that comply with international standards while retaining Chinese characteristics. In this article we focus on an exploration of four quality assurance mechanisms: the approval and access mechanism, the classified regulation mechanism, the evaluation and accreditation mechanism, and the penalization and withdrawal mechanism.