Top executives from French firms including Airbus, Alstom, Areva and Carrefour are among the large business delegation traveling with the French president on his four-day visit.
Chirac was welcomed by a military parade in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, before formal talks with Hu in the nearby Great Hall of the People.
The French president told China's official Xinhua news agency before his trip that he wanted to build a genuine industrial partnership with China and that relations with China lie at the heart of France's foreign affairs.
Speaking to state broadcaster China Central Television in Beijing on Wednesday, Chirac also renewed his call for the European Union to lift its embargo on arms sales to China, calling the ban an anachronism.
Several bilateral economic agreements were expected to be signed on Thursday.
French President Jacques Chirac, with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao (left), inspects a guard-of-honour outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Text: DPA | Photograph: Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty Images