Vice Premier and Foreign Minister of China Chen Yi was the president of the university from 1961 to 1969.

[4] The current president is Wan Fan (王帆), specialist in international relations, and its party secretary is Qi Dayu.

[6] In 2002, together with UN Association of China, CFAU organized the 1st Beijing Model United Nations Conference (BMUN.

[9] In recent years, CFAU has been criticized for putting too much emphasis on the study of foreign languages at the cost of diplomatic training and education, and some consider many Chinese foreign affairs personnel no more than translators or interpreters.

[13] In 2013, during a thorough investigation by the National Audit Office of the PRC, noncompliance was discovered in the procurement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, involving more than 52 million RMB.

However, having trained hundreds of Chinese ambassadors, Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) also considers itself "the cradle of PRC diplomats".