Based on interviews with 30 county party secretaries and 78 village party secretaries, this article discusses government responsibilities in rural elderly care service. Clear Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) method is introduced to explore the interrelationships between various stakeholders. Apart from welfare governance in the western world, rural elderly care service in China is characterized by ‘party leadership and shared responsibility’. The configuration results show that: (1) For county and village secretaries, party leadership and neighborhood assistance is single necessary condition respectively, forming three types of rural elderly care; (2) All interviewees recognize the importance of elderly care support from government, and relationship between various stakeholders presents the amplification effect of party leadership, as well as base effect of government responsibility; (3) There exists heterogeneity among regional configurations, social participation in east region, neighborhood assistance in central and western regions, and family support in northeast region are key factors separately. In order to extend Chinese characterized social security system, rural elderly care service needs to be further improved in terms of collaboration and neighborhood assistance.