Li Cheng is professor of political science and founding director of the Centre on Contemporary China and the World at the University of Hong Kong. Dr. Li’s research areas include the transformation of political leaders, the Chinese middle class, technological development in China, Sino-U.S. relations, and global governance. Li is the author and editor of 18 books, including more recently China-U.S. Relations: Converging Visions in a Shifting Global Landscape (2024), Middle Class Shanghai: Reshaping U.S.-China Engagement (2021), The Power of Ideas: The Rising Influence of Thinkers and Think Tanks in China (2017), and Chinese Politics in the Xi Jinping Era (2016).

Prior to joining the University of Hong Kong, Li served as director and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center, where he remains a nonresident senior fellow. Dr. Li is also a director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Distinguished Fellow of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at University of Toronto, a nonresident fellow at Yale University’s Paul Tsai China Center, and a scholar-in-residence in the Asia Society Hong Kong. Li received an M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Princeton University.