A diplomatic consultant to Chiang Kai-shek, Li was a key facilitator of the China-Germany relationship during the 1930s, and a major proponent of China's League of Nations diplomacy.

Except for obtaining degrees in law and philosophy, he also took time to learn politics, education and military, and mastered German, English, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese and other languages.

Travelling extensively around Europe, Li came into contact with a range of Western progressive ideas, and got to know a handful of promising Chinese students, including Zhou Enlai (周恩来) and Zhu De (朱德), who later became leaders of the People's Republic of China.

Li helped the institution start multiple journals on Chinese studies, such as China, the China-Germany Yearbook and East Asia Review.

As a senior education official, as well as a cultural diplomat, Li was a key proponent and practitioner of China's League of Nations diplomacy in the 1930s.

He proposed that to better combat the Japanese aggression, China should try to draw more support and favorable public opinion from the international community through the League of Nations.

Li played a crucial role in the existence and development of the German Military Mission in China, and was a key facilitator of the China-Germany relationship during the 1930s.

[1][2][3][4] After China's War with Japan (1937–45) erupted in 1937, Li resigned from his post in the central government and took the advice from his friend Jiang Baili (蒋百里) to move his family from Nanjing to Shanghai to help him finish his military works.

[citation needed] During this period, a huge number of Jewish people, mainly from Germany, Austria and Poland, fled to Shanghai to escape the Nazis.

[citation needed] Li was deeply moved by the tragedy of these people and contributed as much as he could to the Jewish community as a better-off local who spent more than a decade in Germany.

[1][4] Li's life went sharply downhill after the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941, when Japanese invaders occupied the British and American controlled parts of the city in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Known as China's Mahatma Gandhi, Li began to lead Shanghai intellectuals to fight Japanese invaders in a non-violent manner.

[1][2] After the founding of the PRC in 1949, Li worked as a professor at the Shanghai International Studies University and nurtured a large number of quality language talents.