The invention discloses a 16QAM demodulation method in a time division synchronous code division multiple access system, comprising the steps of: rotating the received signal and the coordinates of the constellation diagram where it is located by 45 degrees clockwise, and calculating the possible logarithmic likelihood ratio of b0 0, 0 takes the maximum value of the calculation results, if 0 is greater than 0, then b0 is 0, otherwise b0 is 1; rotate the aforementioned signal and the coordinates of the original constellation diagram counterclockwise by 45 degrees, and calculate b1 according to the aforementioned method; according to b0, The demodulation result of b1 adjusts the aforementioned signal, and calculates 2 and 3 according to 2=x+y, 3=y-x. If the calculation result is greater than 0, the demodulation result of the corresponding bit is 0; otherwise, the demodulation result is 1. The present invention adopts the combination of phase rotation and segmented function, demodulation soft judgment mode, realizes 16QAM soft demodulation conveniently, not only has less calculation amount, but also guarantees demodulation performance effectively, thereby improves 16QAM in TD-SCDMA system demodulation efficiency and quality.