[1] He was a native of Zhejiang province starting to play table tennis at 15 and joined the national team in 1959.

[3] In men's singles competitions, he made 3 consecutive appearances at the finals of the World Championships in 1961, 1963, and 1965.

However, Li lost to compatriot Zhuang Zedong in all of the three finals, making himself become one of four players who played in three finals without winning (together with Hungarian Laszlo Bellak, Polish Alojzy Ehrlich and countryman Ma Lin).

[5][6] The 1961 Championships was referred as the commencement of match fixing in history of Chinese table tennis.

[2] The post was succeeded by Cai Zhenhua in 2009 and Li was awarded the ATTU Honorary Life President in 2010.