Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of 15th CPC Central Committee; vice premier of the PRC State Council.

Li was elected Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of CPC Central Committee in September 1997, and reelected vice premier of the PRC State Council on March 18, 1998.

Li became deputy head of the State Steering Group of Science, Technology and Education, 1998.

After graduating from Fudan University as an enterprise management major in 1952, li was assigned to the No. 1 Automobile Factory in Changchun.

From 1956 to 1957, Li worked as a trainee at Moscow's Liharchev and Gorky automobile factories in Soviet Union. After his return home, he worked in the No.1 Automobile Factory as chief of its planning section.

Between 1959-1981, he had worked successively in the First Ministry of Machine-building Industry, State Economic Commission, and No.2 Automobile Factory and No.3 Automobile Factory.

In 1981, he became chief of the Government Loan Office under the State Commission on Imports and Exports. In 1982, he became director of the Foreign Investment Administrative Bureau in the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade (MOFERT). In early 1983, he became vice mayor of Tianjin.

Between 1986 and 1990 Li took the post of MOFERT vice minister, and became minister in 1990-1992; and has been vice premier of the State Council since 1993.

In 1992, he was elected into the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, and became deputy director of the Economic and Trade Office of the State Council. Li was appointed chairman of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council in 1995.

In 1998, he was appointed director of National Committee for the Patriotic Public Health Campaign.

He was alternate member of the 13th CPC Central Committee, member of 14th and 15th CPC Central Committees, member of the Political Bureau of 14th and 15th CPC Central Committees, and Standing Committee member of Political Bureau of 15th CPC Central Committee.

He was elected deputy to the 8th and 9th NPC.