Vandermeersch studied Chinese and Vietnamese at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales.
He graduated from the Faculté des lettres de Paris in 1951 with a law degree.
He began his career in Vietnam as a secondary school teacher and was subsequently curator of the Musée Louis Finot from 1951 to 1958.
Until his retirement in 1993, he taught history of Confucianism at the École pratique des hautes études.
He headed the Maison franco-japonaise [fr] from 1981 to 1984 and was Director of the French School of the Far East from 1989 to 1993.