[3] China did not have a tradition of mass choruses,[2]: 127  but Christian church congregations and mission student groups had begun to use music as an attraction as early as the 19th century.

Inspired by an American book which discussed the use of community song, Music United People, Liu began teaching mass singing to improve wartime morale and promote national unity.

Within a week, the number of participants had nearly tripled, and by mid-1936 the group, known as the People’s Song Association, had attracted more than 1,000 members, with regional branches in Hong Kong and Guangzhou.

[6] As relations with Japan grew more tense, in February 1937, at the invitation of General Fu Zuoyi and acting under the auspices of the national YMCA, Liu formed a war zone Soldier Relief Board in Suiyuan, in western China.

The hall was filled with “ordinary people from the street – students, petty clerks, workmen, schoolchildren, newsboys, and even rickshaw pullers,” who “with serious faces repeated the separate phrase of the song they were being taught.

Liu’s group managed to save the YMCA building and to evacuate many of the wounded soldiers, but determined it would be safer to move on to Zhejiang.

Liu set out for Shanghai to seek the support of Soong Ching-ling, the widow of Sun Yat-sen, who had become the protector of leftist cultural activities, but before he could reach her the Nationalist police put him under house arrest.

Soon after he arrived in New York, Liu mentioned to a friend that he knew of the African American singer and political activist Paul Robeson and his early support for China, and said that he would like to meet him.

Liu introduced Robeson to the concept of the mass singing movement, and a number of songs including March of the Volunteers (Chee lai).

[2]: 70  Chee lai resonated with Robeson, who viewed it as expressing the determination of oppressed people around the world, including Chinese and Blacks.

[15] and appeared onstage with such figures as Pearl S. Buck and Eleanor Roosevelt in a series of rallies which attracted thousands in New York and Philadelphia .

[11] He also appeared in places with a less high profile, such as Bedford, Trimble County, in the hills of Kentucky, where some 400 farmers contributed eggs, sorghum, chickens, turkeys, potatoes, apples, corn and home canned foods to be auctioned.

During Madme Chiang Kai-shek's visit to the United States in 1943, Liu was openly critical of the Nationalist government of her husband, even more so when she made remarks that seemed to disparage African Americans.

By 1945 these incidents had made the Pittsburgh Courier's African American readers so distrustful of Chinese that the publisher discontinued Liu's connection with the paper.

[18] In 1945 Liu addressed the Chinese Students' Christian Association, the oldest such group in North America, to attack the dictatorial rule of the Nationalists.

[2]: 146 Having been invited to attend the First National People's Political Consultative Conference and also at risk of deportation from the U.S., on August 1, 1949 Liu and his family left New York City for China.

The Shanghai YMCA Press published books by Liu explaining Mao Zedong's New Democracy[2]: 168  and How America Uses Religion to Invade China.

[citation needed] Especially after the Korean War started, Liu was well-regarded as a commentator on U.S. issues, including the experiences of Black Americans.

[2]: 36-37  In July 1951, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement sent Liu and a work team to the Shanghai headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventists, where they held three public accusation meetings.

[2]: 175 As vice chair of the Returned Overseas Chinese Association, Liu condemned the 1966 anti-Chinese movement in Indonesia, which he described as part of an anti-communist conspiracy by U.S.

[2]: 176 Following the end of the Cultural Revolution, during which Christians and their churches were attacked, Liu held positions in the Chinese YMCA and the Shanghai government.

[22] In 1982, Liu, then vice-chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Political Consultative Conference,[2]: 167  submitted a photo to Jiefang Daily which he had taken in 1938 when he visited Nanjing to record the atrocities by the Japanese army.