Born in Beijing,[2] Li began competing in 2007 and was runner-up behind Su Xiongfeng at that year's Chinese City Games – the country's foremost junior competition.

[5] Li was selected to represent China in the long jump at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics and narrowly missed out on qualification into the final.

[10][11] He attended the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha, but failed to make it past the qualifying round.

[12] Li attempted to defend his national long jump title at the Chinese Championships in August, but was beaten into second by Su Xiongfeng.

[19] Li jumped a new personal best of 8.34 m at the 2013 Shanghai Golden Grand Prix, defeating a quality field including the last three Olympic champions (Phillips, Irving Saladino and Greg Rutherford) as well as Mitchell Watt and Aleksandr Menkov.

[23] On September 30, in the men's long jump final of the Incheon Asian Games, Li Jinzhe won the gold medal with a time of 8.01 meters.