Mid-western China is one of the most sensitive and fragile areas on the Earth. Evapotranspiration (ET) is a key part of hydrological cycle in these areas and is affected by both global climate change and human activities. The dynamic changes in ET and potential evapotranspiration (PET), which can reflect water consumption and demand, are still unclear, and there is a lack of predictive capacity on drought severity. In this study, we used global MODIS (moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer) terrestrial ET (MOD16) products, Morlet wavelet analysis, and simple linear regression to investigate the spatiotemporal variations of ET, PET, reference ET (ET0), and aridity index (AI) in mid-western pastoral regions of China (including Gansu Province, Qinghai Province, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and part of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region) from 2001 to 2016. The results showed that the overall ET gradually increased from east to southwest in the study area. Actual ET showed an increasing trend, whereas PET tended to decrease from 2001 to 2016. The change in ET was affected by vegetation types. During the study period, the average annual ET0 and AI tended to decrease. At the monthly scale within a year, AI value decreased from January to July and then increased. The interannual variations of ET0 and AI showed periodicity with a main period of 14 a, and two other periodicities of 11 and 5 a. This study showed that in recent years, drought in these pastoral regions of mid-western China has been alleviated. Therefore, it is foreseeable that the demand for irrigation water for agricultural production in these regions will decrease.