Note that the meaning of both "China" and "France" as entities has changed throughout history; this article will discuss what was commonly considered 'France' and 'China' at the time of the relationships in question.

Present-day relations are marked by both countries' respective regional powers stature (in the EU for France and Asia for China), as well as their shared status as G20 economies, permanent members of the UN Security Council, and internationally recognized nuclear-weapon states.

Other biographical factors lead commentators to proclaim that Louis XIV and the Kangxi Emperor were protected by the same angel.

Under Louis XIV's reign, the work of these French researchers sent by the King had a notable influence on Chinese sciences, but continued to be mere intellectual games, and not tools to improve the power of man over nature.

Paris-based geographers processed reports and cartographic material supplied by mostly French Jesuit teams traveling across the Qing Empire, and published a number of high-quality works, the most important of which was Description de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise edited by Jean-Baptiste Du Halde (1736), with maps by Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville.

In the 18th century, the French Jesuit priest Michel Benoist, together with Giuseppe Castiglione, helped the Qianlong Emperor build a European-style area in the Old Summer Palace (often associated with European-style palaces built of stone), to satisfy his taste for exotic buildings and objects.

The Holy Childhood Association (L'Oeuvre de la Sainte Enfance) was a Catholic charity founded in 1843 to rescue Chinese children from infanticide.

Rioting sparked by false rumors of the killing of babies led to the death of a French consul and provoked a diplomatic crisis.

[citation needed] For centuries China had claimed the Indo-China territory to its south as a tributary state, but France began a series of invasions, turning French Indochina into its own colony.

The undeclared war was militarily a stalemate, but it recognize that France had control of Annam and Indochina was no longer a tributary of China.

Li Shizeng, Zhang Renjie, Wu Zhihui, and Cai Yuanpei formed an anarchist group which became the basis for the Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement.

Paris provided loans on condition that Japan respect the Open Door and not violate China's territorial integrity.

In the French-Japanese Entente of 1907, Paris secured Japan's recognition of the special interests France possessed in “the regions of the Chinese Empire adjacent to the territories” where they had “the rights of sovereignty, protection or occupation,” which meant the French colonial possessions in southeast Asia as well as the French spheres of influence in three provinces in southern China—Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong.

France eventually agreed to prohibit local companies from selling arms to Taiwan, and diplomatic relations resumed in 1994.

[24] Organizations associated with the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party maintain links with French parliamentarians.

As torchbearers passed through Paris, activists fighting for Tibetan independence and human rights repeatedly attempted to disrupt, hinder or halt the procession.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy wrote a letter of support and sympathy to Jin Jing, a Chinese athlete who had carried the Olympic torch.

[31] CCP general secretary Hu Jintao subsequently sent a special envoy to France to help strengthen relations.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao omitted France in his tour of Europe in response, his assistant foreign minister saying of the rift "The one who tied the knot should be the one who unties it.

"[33] French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin was quoted in Le Monde as saying that France had no intention of "encourag[ing] Tibetan separatism".

[35] French authorities subsequently asked the MSS officer and another Chinese intelligence official to leave the country.

It came at a time when the leading American firm, Boeing, saw its entire fleet of new 737 MAX passenger planes grounded worldwide.

[39] After he refused to reconsider his trip, the Chinese embassy began Tweeting aggressive insults and threats against him and various other pro-Taiwan lawmakers and experts.

[43] In December 2020, France said it would oppose the proposed Comprehensive Agreement on Investment between the European Union and China over the use of forced labour of Uyghurs.

There is also a bilingual Chinese-French school aimed at Chinese children, École expérimentale franco-chinoise de Pékin (北京中法实验学校), which is converted from the former Wenquan No.