Nuclear safety is related to the development of nuclear energy utilization. In order to guide the design and operation of nuclear power plants, it is necessary to establish the nuclear safety goals for the nuclear supervision. According to the method and the process of the safety goal establishment, the societal risk is the base of the safety goals. The probabilistic safety goals regarding core damage frequency (CDF) and large early release frequency (LERF) of nuclear power plants have been derived from the Quantitative Health Objective (QHO) based on American societal risk. The probabilistic safety goals of nuclear power plants in China have been developed according to the American societal risks instead of resorting to the Chinese societal risks. Therefore, it proposed to investigate the Chinese societal risks and to develop a framework for the determination of nuclear safety goals of China. To this end, the existing nuclear safety objective determination systems in various countries have been studied firstly. Then, Chinese societal risks have been investigated by using a collecting the risk data according to risk types and industries, and risk data have been analyzed by using of statistical methods. Finally, based on a study on safety objectives and the Chinese societal risks, we analyze the insufficiencies of Chinese existing safety objectives and provide suggestions for the future amendment and development of Chinese nuclear safety objectives.