In 1896, he became the Belgian consul in China and stayed there until 1902. In China he met the later American president Herbert Hoover during negotiations concerning the granting of the Hankow-Canton railroad concession in China in 1901. Although they were competitors, they respected each other very much. In April 1924, Émile Francqui participated in the creation of the Dawes Plan to find a solution for the collection of the German reparations debt following World War I. In 1932 Émile Francqui and Herbert Hoover created the Francqui Foundation for the support of basic research in Belgium.