In order to explore the important factors in the diagnosis of breast cancer in China, meta-analysis of previous studies was performed to understand the association between STAT3/p-STAT3 and breast cancer. Information about STAT3/p-STAT3 expression and clinical data about breast cancer in China in particular were gathered from PubMed, Web of Science, CNKI and WanFang databases. RevMan 5.3 and STATA 14.0 were used to analyze the occurrence, development and metastasis of breast cancer for 2818 patients in 18 studies. STAT3/p-STAT3 expression was higher in breast cancer tissue than in normal ones (OR = 7.48, 95% CI = 5.64-9.94), in highly differentiated breast cancer tissue than in lowly differentiated cancer tissues (OR = 2.13, 95% CI = 1.53-2.98), in III/IV stage breast cancer than in I/II stage breast cancer (OR = 3.58, 95% CI = 2.44-5.25), and in tissue with lymphatic metastasis than in normal tissues (OR = 3.72, 95% CI = 2.59-5.35), respectively. Thus, the expression of STAT3/p-STAT3 plays a clinicopathological and prognostic role in the diagnosis and treatment of Chinese breast cancer patients.