Yunnan province is one of the populated areas in China where earthquakes have frequently happened especially in recent years, meanwhile a large number of highway bridges have been designed and constructed in Yunnan, whose seismic resistance design is implemented according to the <Specifications of Earthquake Resistant Design for Highway Engineering>(JTJ004-89). Since October 1^st 2008 the <Guidelines for Seismic Design of Highway Bridge> (JTG/T B02-01-2008) has been released, that has radically revised the guiding concept and performance requirement for the bridge seismic design. Then what level the bridges that have been designed and constructed before the date line are at according to the revised specification, what level according to the current <Specification for Japanese Highway Bridges> that is considered more advanced in the world, and what are the differences between the Chinese specification and the Japanese one are studied. In this paper, a representative expressway bridge in Yunnan respectively according to the Chinese old, revised specifications and Japanese specification is analyzed. This calculation brings some helps to the construction of the highway bridge in Yunnan.