Background
Nothing is known about his background.
Nothing is known about his background.
After graduating in 1908 from a normal college in Ch’ang-te where he studied physics and chemistry, he taught at a technical middle school in Changsha, the provincial capital. Winning a government scholarship, Li continued his study of physics and chemistry at the Asakusa Higher Technical Institute (later known as the Tokyo Industrial College). He returned home after his graduation in 1918 and for the next two decades he worked in technical and managerial positions in two important companies in present-day Hopeh the Chiu-ta Salt Company and the Yung-li Alkali Manufacturing Corporation. Like so many coastal industrialists, Li went to Szechwan when war with Japan broke out in 1937. He is credited with major contributions in the restoration of the important salt industry in the southwest and the development of industry in free China.
Dissatisfied with the Nationalist government, Li joined with other businessmen and industrialists in Chungking to establish the China Democratic National Construction Association (CDNCA) in 1945. When the Communists came to power four years later, the Association was recognized as one of the several non-Communist “democratic” political parties. In the Maoist version of CCP history, Li was cleared of any association with former “devia-tionist” lines by the “Resolution on Some Questions in the History of Our Party” adopted in 1945 at the Seventh Party Plenum. This stated: "But as to the twenty-odd important cadres of the Party, including Lin Yii-nan, Li Ch’iu-shih, and Ho Meng-hsiung, they did much useful work for the Party and the people, maintained excellent connection with the masses and, when arrested shortly afterwards, stood up firm to the enemy and became noble martyrs.
In June 1949 Li participated in the meetings presided over by Mao Tse-tung to prepare for the establishment of the Communists’ national government. Representing industrial and commercial circles, he attended in September 1949 the inaugural session of the CPPCC, the organization that formally brought the new government into existence. With the formation of the central government in October he was appointed to membership on its most important body, the Central People’s Government Council, which was chaired by Mao. Although he regularly attended the Council meetings in Peking until it was abolished in 1954, he spent most of the early PRC years in Tientsin where he managed the Yung-li Chemical Works. He also continued as an active member of the CDNCA and has served since at least 1953 as one of its vice-chairmen. In addition, in the early fifties he was chairman of the Association’s Tientsin branch.
Li’s principal functions have been related to domestic industry and commerce, but he has also been a fairly active participant in the international relations of the PRC. This began in the spring of 1952 when the Communists, in an effort to circumvent American efforts to curtail Chinese trade, established the China Committee for the Promotion of International Trade (see under Nan Han-ch’en). Li was named as a Committee member, and since at least 1955 he has been a vice-chairman.
His various trips abroad are outlined below. 1952: member, delegation led by Nan Han-ch’en to the International Economic Conference, Moscow, April, member, delegation led by Mme. Sun Yat-sen to a world peace congress, Vienna, December, 1954: member, delegation led by Kuo Mo-jo to the International Conference on the Relaxation of World Tension, Stockholm, June, 1955: deputy leader, trade delegation led by Lei Jen-min to Japan, March-May, 1959: member, delegation led by Nieh Jung-chen for 10th anniversary of German Democratic Republic, East Germany, October, 1960: deputy leader, delegation led by Liu Ch’ang-sheng to celebrations marking the 10th anniversary of Sino-Soviet Treaty of Alliance, Moscow, February (in the same month he went to East Germany to attend the opening of the Leipzig Trade Fair), 1961: member, delegation led by Chou En-lai to attend the 13th anniversary celebrations of Burma's independence and to exchange the instruments of ratification of the Sino-Burmese Boundary Treaty, January (while in Rangoon, Li took part in economic talks with the Burmese), deputy leader, NPC delegation led by Kuo Mo-jo to Burma and Indonesia, August-September, 1962: member, NPC delegation led by P’eng Chen to North Korea on a goodwill visit, April-May.