Abstract: On the basis of more than 200-year control run, the performance of the climate system model of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS-ESM-C) in simulating the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle is evaluated, including the onset, development and decay of the ENSO. It is shown that, the model can reasonably simulate the annual cycle and interannual variability of sea surface temperature (SST) in the tropical Pacific, as well as the seasonal phase-locking of the ENSO. The model also captures two prerequisites for the El Niño onset, i.e., a westerly anomaly and a warm SST anomaly in the equatorial western Pacific. Owing to too strong forcing from an extratropical meridional wind, however, the westerly anomaly in this region is largely overestimated. Moreover, the simulated thermocline is much shallower with a weaker slope. As a result, the warm SST anomaly from the western Pacific propagates eastward more quickly, leading to a faster development of an El Niño. during the decay stage, owing to a stronger El Niño in the model, the secondary Gill-type response of the tropical atmosphere to the eastern Pacific warming is much stronger, thereby resulting in a persistent easterly anomaly in the western Pacific. Meanwhile, a cold anomaly in the warm pool appears as a result of a lifted thermocline via Ekman pumping. Finally, an El Niño decays into a La Niña through their interactions. In addition, the shorter period and larger amplitude of the ENSO in the model can be attributed to a shallower thermocline in the equatorial Pacific, which speeds up the zonal redistribution of a heat content in the upper ocean.