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ABSTRACT: The forecast skill of BCC‐CSM1.1 model in summer East Asian climate was evaluated with the decadal prediction experiments launched annually during 1961–2005. Results of the decadal prediction were compared with those of the historical simulation to estimate contribution of the initialization. Improved prediction skill is found for summer surface air temperature (SAT) in central eastern China measured by both root mean square error (RMSE) and anomaly correlation coefficient (ACC) for the forecast years 2–5. The decadal hindcast of precipitation in central eastern China shows increased skill in RMSE but not ACC. Such improvement in East Asia is related to enhanced prediction skill of the western Pacific (WP) sea surface temperature (SST) originated from the oceanic initialization. In the decadal hindcast, the lower tropospheric atmospheric circulation associated with warm WP exhibits an anticyclone over the South China Sea, which resembles the observation. The southwesterly increases over southeast China associated with warm WP, favouring higher SAT in central eastern China. This reveals that the decadal predictions could more realistically reproduce the relationship between summer East Asian atmospheric circulation and WP SST. The 4‐year average forecast within a decade shows that the initialization increases the ACC skill up to forecast years 4–7 for summer SAT in central eastern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]