Li Cheng is a professor of political science and the founding director of the Centre on Contemporary China and the World (CCCW) at the University of Hong Kong. Professor Li's research areas include the transformation of political leaders, the Chinese middle class, technological development in China, and Sino-U.S. relations. Li is the author and editor of 17 books, including the recent titles Middle Class Shanghai: Reshaping U.S.-China Engagement, The Power of Ideas: The Rising Influence of Thinkers and Think Tanks in China. 

Prior to joining HKU, Li served as director and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's John L. Thornton China Center, where he remains a nonresident senior fellow. Professor Li is also a director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a Distinguished Fellow of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, a nonresident fellow at Yale University's Paul Tsai China Center, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. 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.