As the chief representative of China's science and technology community in international scientific and technological exchanges, CAST maintains friendly cooperative relations with their counterparts of various countries.

By 2006, it has signed cooperative agreements with organizations of more than 20 countries and regions, and carried out bilateral cooperative exchange activities in various forms. CAST and its affiliates are members of more than 200 international and regional scientific and technological organizations, including the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO), and are playing an increasingly important role in them.

CAST was granted the NGO consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in July 2004 and has engaged itself in much of the work of the UN concerning a variety of pressing issues of the world today.