Using data collected from 36 interviews with the police and their family members, the first author’s insider perspective as a former police officer and the second author’s lived experience of growing up in a police family, as well as media reports, this paper explores how work-family conflict plays out among rank-and-file police officers in China. We find that, like their counterparts elsewhere, the Chinese rank-and-file officers have been troubled by three dimensions of work-family conflict touching on professional habits, overtime work and working pressure. We argue that while the work-family conflict inflicted by professional encroachment may be common for police officers in all jurisdictions, the time-based and strain-based conflicts share unique political roots of self-sacrifice spirit advocated by the Chinese party-state. This study is not only one of the very first empirical studies on the work-family conflict among police officers in China but it also contributes to comparative policing studies by highlighting how politics in a particular country may affect the conflict.