The development of Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in China has spurred some transitions in cultural education related to English curriculum development. Notwithstanding researchers have discussed cultural education in the field of English language teaching, there is still a dearth of study in Chinese academia about the diachronic analysis of cultural education with reference to GCE in the National English Curriculum Standards (NECS). To fill the gap, a qualitative study was conducted to examine the extent to which Chinese NECS considers the impact of GCE with regard to cultural education, and how cultural education has transitioned between two NECS during the past decade through qualitative content analysis of themes including orientation of cultural education, Chinese cultural education, global cultural education, transcultural education, and cultural education of English-speaking countries. The findings reveal that critical GCE has not been sufficiently taken into account in NECS, while some transitions associated with inclusivity and diversity were identified regarding cultural education in the new curriculum, which could provide implications for English curriculum development and teachers' practices towards more flexible, dynamic and fluid transcultural communications.