He served as the 2nd Minister of Foreign Trade of China from November 1973 to September 1981, and was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1955.

After his close friend and colleague Gu Shunzhang defected to the KMT in 1931, Li was forced into exile in the Soviet Union, where he studied to become a radio expert and published a book on rhombic antenna.

During the ensuing Chinese Civil War, he continued to oversee the CCP's arms industry and established a shortwave radio station for the Xinhua News Agency.

After becoming Minister of Foreign Trade in 1973, he signed hundreds of major deals to import Western technology and machinery and helped modernize China's economy.

[1] Li became a Communist during the May Thirtieth Movement,[1][2] which began when the police of the Shanghai International Settlement opened fire on Chinese protesters, killing 11.

[3] He joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in August 1925 and made dynamite and grenades in July 1926 to prepare for the Third Rebellion of Shanghai Workers [zh] in support of Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition from Guangzhou.

The surviving Communists went underground and established its intelligence agency, the Central Special Operations Division (中央特别行动科; known by its Chinese abbreviation Teke), led by Zhou Enlai.

[1][5] In Moscow, Li planned to study at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East, which was attended by many CCP leaders, including Liu Shaoqi, Luo Yinong, and Ren Bishi.

Li instead joined the Communication Science Research Institute and devoted his next six years studying radio theory and technology.

[1][5] After the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Li was granted permission to return to China at the end of 1937, as his technical expertise was urgently needed by the Communist headquarters in Yan'an.

[5] In May 1944, he was appointed President of Yan'an Natural Science Institute, the CCP's first technical university,[5] and reformed its curriculum to serve industrial and agricultural production.

[5] Because of his technical expertise and proficiency in Russian, in August 1952 Mao Zedong appointed Li as Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Commercial Counselor at the Chinese embassy in Moscow.

[8] In late 1970, he secretly visited the Ho Chi Minh trail to inspect the transport route of North Vietnamese troops to South Vietnam.

By October 1977, he had signed 197 deals to import technology and machinery from many Western countries, which greatly helped modernize China's industry, agriculture, and national defence.