Yao Lijun began his football career playing for Shanghai 02 where his impressive displays for the club would see him captain the team to numerous youth championships, before joining their senior team that took part in the third tier in the 2000 Chinese league season.
[1] After playing in one league season with the club they were taken over by top tier side Shanghai Shenhua and he moved towards their senior team.
After making his debut in 2002 he was a squad regular for Shanghai Shenhua where he could play as either right-back or centre-back, however due to his versatility he consistently had other players preferred to when fighting for competition of places, however despite that he was part of the team that went on to win the 2003 Chinese Jia-A League title.
[3][4] By the beginning of the 2007 league season Shenhua had merged with local rivals Shanghai United F.C.
and with the exceptionally large squad Yao would gradually gain even less playing time until in 2010 he was dropped to the reserve team.