China Books was founded in Chicago in 1960 by Dr. Henry Halsey Noyes (1910–2004).
Noyes was born in Guangzhou, China into a third generation Presbyterian missionary family.
At its peak before the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, China Books thrived with stores in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York and employed over 50 people.
China Books was instrumental in providing books, newspapers, and magazines from China which were essential to the establishing of post-1949 Chinese political and reference materials at university and other research libraries across the United States.
As of 2012, China Books, together with Long River Press became part of Sinomedia International Group.