Based on the ERA-Interim reanalysis data provided by the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), in this study, we estimated atmospheric apparent heat sources using a thermal equation. We investigated the interdecadal change in the relation between the atmospheric apparent heat sources over the Tibetan Plateau in summer and the summer precipitation in eastern China, and the mechanism of the impact of these heat sources on the summer precipitation in eastern China. We found the variance in the west-east dipole mode of the atmospheric apparent heat sources over the Tibetan Plateau in summer to exhibit an interdecadal increase, which illustrates the increasing importance of the west-east dipole mode from the second leading mode prior to 1994 to the first mode after 1994. The relationship between the atmospheric apparent heat sources over the Tibetan Plateau and precipitation in eastern China exhibited interdecadal changes around 1994 and 2007. The summer abnormal heat sources over the Tibetan Plateau are closely related only to the precipitation anomalies over the lower reaches of the Yangtze River prior to 1993 and those over the middle Yangtze River after 2008, but are related to the summer precipitation in the Yangtze River Basin and adjacent and southern China regions from 1994-2007. Specifically, the strong (weak) heat sources over the eastern Plateau in summer correspond to abundant (scarce) precipitation over the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the Huaihe River Basin, with less (more) rainfall in southern China. We found the atmospheric apparent heat sources over the Tibetan Plateau to influence the summer precipitation in the Yangtze River Basin and adjacent regions mainly through the eastward movement of the weather systems that develop as they pass over the Plateau, as well as the precipitation in southern China through anomalous vertical circulation.