Since his childhood, Qiao Guanhua showed a great intelligence, especially remarkable memory, so he repeatedly skipped school grades, and was admitted to the Tsinghua University at the age of 16.

Admitted to the CCP in the autumn of 1942, Qiao Guanhua was called to Chongqing to take charge of The Masses' Weekly and the international column of the Xinhua Daily.

In 1950, he accompanied Special Representative Wu Xiuquan to the United Nations Security Council to protest against the United States's shielding of Chiang Kai-shek's regime in Taiwan; in 1951 he was major consultant to the head of the Chinese delegation to the Panmunjeom talks during the Korean War; in April 1954 accompanied Zhou Enlai to the Geneva Conference on Indochina, and once again traveled to the 1961–1962 Geneva summit on Laos with Chen Yi.

With the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Qiao Guanhua was denounced along with Chen Yi and Ji Pengfei as a counterrevolutionary, but Premier Zhou Enlai protected them and they survived the turmoil of that period.

In 1969, Qiao was appointed head of the Chinese delegation for the talks with the Soviet Union regarding the Zhenbao Island, where military fighting had erupted.

In 1972, when President of the United States Richard Nixon visited China, he was put in charge of negotiations with Henry Kissinger and drafting the joint communiqué.

He was elected a member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, and later was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1974, confirmed by the 4th National People's Congress in 1975.