He joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) following the Second Sino-Japanese War in April 1946.
He worked for the Jilin City CCP committee, then at Songhuajiang Daily, then Yongji prefecture.
In 1972, he returned to work, taking on a leading role in the provincial Office for Rural Affairs and Forestry and various leading posts in Jilin City, eventually being promoted to party chief and mayor of Jilin City.
After the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, the leadership of People's Daily was reshuffled in order to ensure "political loyalty" of the newspaper, with Gao Di taking on the post of head of the newspaper.
However, he later fell out of favor due to not having sufficiently supported Deng Xiaoping's southern tour speeches, and was removed as chief officer.