The Chinese Cultural Center in Paris, located in downtown areas opposing the celebrated historic sites of Grand Palais and Petit Palais across the Seine River, sits next to a spate of stately, handsome and elegant classical architectures that have witnessed the evolution of Paris at various historical stages. It conforms to the status of China, a great power with a lasting civilization of several thousand years in the East, to set the Chinese Cultural Center in this exact place.

The China Cultural Center in Paris, launched in November 2002, is the first such institute that China opened in a western country. It has served as a window through which French people can understand China and created a platform to facilitate cultural exchange.

China Cultural Center in Paris consists of an old building and a new one with the total space increased from originally 1700 square meters to 4000 square meters. The new building, opened officially in 2008, is simple and modern whereas the old one classic and delicate, both demonstrating the culture’s nature of spatial transcendence and time heritance.

The Center aims to introduce Chinese traditional and modern cultures to the French citizens via lectures, seminars, performances, concerts, films and exhibitions. With the Chinese teaching as its focus, the Culture also provides public courses on calligraphy, traditional painting, instrumental music and traditional medicine. The multimedia library inside the Center also holds materials of a great variety including books, journals, CDs and tapes. Together with its website and quarterly entitled China beside Seine, these holdings are believed to transmit effective information to the French public. Combining the functions of cultural exchange, information dissemination and language teaching, the Center has conducted effective works for Sino-French communication and has its influence felt in France and even in the neighboring countries.

China established its first batch of overseas cultural centers in Mauritius and Benin in 1988. The country has so far established cultural centers in nine countries and signed formal agreements with more than 20 countries on the establishment of cultural centers. At present, the Chinese government is working to build more cultural centers abroad.

According to the Overseas Chinese Cultural Centers Development Plan, issued by the Ministry of Culture, China will form a relatively complete global network of cultural centers by 2020 to further promote Chinese culture and enhance the role of overseas cultural promotion.