[1] He is currently professor of political science and founding director of the Centre on Contemporary China and the World (CCCW) at the University of Hong Kong.
At University of California, Berkeley, Li studied under the well-known scholar Robert Scalapino, and was mentored by the veteran China watcher A. Doak Barnett.
[4] From 1993 to 1995, he worked in China as a fellow with the U.S.-based Institute of Current World Affairs, observing grassroots changes in his native country.
Based on this experience, he published a nationally acclaimed book, Rediscovering China: Dynamics and Dilemmas of Reform (1997).
In a 2024 interview with the Financial Times, Li said he made this decision because the social and political environment in the United States had become more hostile to China scholars as relations between the two countries worsened and his views fell out of favor.