On August 25, 1958, China and Iraq established diplomatic relations. In 2003, the outbreak of the Iraq War affected the bilateral relations between China and Iraq. After the war, China-Iraq relations achieved steady transition and development. In July 2004, the Chinese Embassy in Iraq reopened. In October, the two countries resumed the appointment of ambassadors. In December 2015, during Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's visit to China, the two governments issued a joint statement announcing the establishment of a strategic partnership.

The two countries have maintained sound exchanges. In December 2022, President Xi Jinping met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Sabbar al-Sudani on the sidelines of the first China-Arab States Summit. In addition, visits from the Chinese side to Iraq in recent years mainly include: Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (February 2014), Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) Chen Zhu (April 2018), among others. Visits from the Iraqi side to China mainly include: Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi (September 2019), Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein (May 2024), among others.

The two countries have close economic and trade cooperation. China is Iraq's largest trading partner, and Iraq is China's third largest trading partner among Arab states. In 2024, the trade volume between China and Iraq reached USD 54.223 billion, of which China's exports amounted to USD 15.986 billion and imports totaled USD 38.237 billion. Iraq is China's third largest source of crude oil imports. In 2024, China imported 63.8367 million tons of crude oil from Iraq.

Cultural and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries have been advancing smoothly. In recent years, the two sides have maintained sound cooperation within the frameworks of the Forum on Ancient Civilizations and the World's Ancient Civilizations Protection Forum, among others. Iraq has sent art groups to China to perform and participate in the Arabic Arts Festival on many occasions, and a number of mainstream Iraqi media outlets have visited China for interviews and exchanges. Salahaddin University in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Region, offers a Chinese language elective course.