Early years
Born in Chaohu County, , Li was also known as Li Zetian and Li Leizhong. He became the deputy editor of the ''Anqing Guomin Shibao'' in 1926, entering the Chinese Communist Party in 1927. In this same period Li became a local propaganda leader for the Chinese in the same locality, and performed local coordination for the Northern Expedition. After the CCP's break with the KMT in April 1927, Li travelled to Shanghai in 1928 to do newspaper work for the communists on the ''Tieshenche Bao'' and the ''Laobaixing Bao'' newspapers. At this time he assumed intelligence duties with the CCP Special Branch and eventually was assigned a covert role as the personal decoder to KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek. In 1929, under the direct order of Zhou Enlai, Li Kenong used a fake name, Li Zetian to join a KMT intelligence agency in Shanghai, specializing in radio communication and cryptography. Li excelled in his work and was promoted to the section head at Shanghai, but unbeknownst to the KMT, he was passing everything of interest along to their enemies the communists.
On April 25, 1931, Qian Zhuangfei , one of the agents planted in the intelligence agency headquarted at Nanjing, who was directly under Li's control, saw the message from Wuhan announcing the capture of the senior CCP intelligence official Gu Shunzhang . Qian held the message from distribution while he sent his son-in-law from Nanjing to notify Li in Shanghai. Li immediately attempted to inform CCP leaders of the event, but April 25 and April 26 were not the day for him to contact his case officer, Chen Geng. Li decided to break the rule and went to look for Chen in one place after another and eventually found him, reporting the capture of Gu. The pair informed Zhou Enlai, who arranged an emergency evacuation of as many CCP members as possible from their hiding places in Shanghai. hundreds were saved, though not all. These events marked the end of Li Kenong's ability to serve under clandestine cover, and he fled to Mao Zedong's base in . Li was later appointed the head of the CCP's Jiangxi Protection Branch , Executive Director of Political Protection for the Chinese Soviet, and Chief of Political Protection Bureau. Upon arrival in Shanxi at the end of , Li became the chief of the CCP Central Committee Liaison Bureau . In 1936 after the Xi'an Incident, he was appointed as Secretary in charge of the CCP delegation based there. During the Xi'an Incident, Li served for the first time as a principal negotiator, roles that he would repeat later on in Panmunjom and Geneva .
World War II
Upon the outbreak of the in 1937, Li was appointed head of the Eighth Route Army offices in Shanghai, Nanking , and Guilin. He also became the CCP Central Committee Yangtze Bureau Secretary, and an assistant to Zhou Enlai. As the relationship between the CCP and KMT worsened with the 1941 New Fourth Army Incident, communist delegations in nationalist controlled regions were ordered to return to Yan'an. Li Kenong faced an impossible task of taking all of the important documents and intelligence gathered back to the communist base without being confiscated by the nationalists and he accomplished this successfully by letting his team to ride with a nationalist military convoy along the way. Li personally rode in the very same car used by the commander, and completed the journey without any loss.
After his successful return to Yan'an, he became the deputy director of the CCP Central Department of Social Affairs , under Kang Sheng. In 1942 he became the deputy of the CCP Central Intelligence Department , the staff and leadership of which partially overlapped with those of the CDSA. One of the primary tasks of him and his fellow was to do business with the Japanese, so that the supplies needed in communist rear areas such as medicines could be obtained. Although such actions were sanctioned by Mao Zedong himself, the communist agents and cadres involved were nonetheless persecuted decades later during the Cultural Revolution. Li may only have escaped such a fate because he died in 1962.
Chinese Civil War
In 1945, Li was placed in charge of the CCP delegation office in Peiping , and was concurrently appointed head of the Central Intelligence Department and Director of the CDSA, replacing Kang Sheng after the unpopular rectification campaigns led by Kang on behalf of Mao Zedong. In 1947 Li became a member of the Central Committee’s Rear Area Commission.
During the Chinese Civil War, Li Kenong continued to personally take charge of decoding and his team achieved great success with planted in the KMT forces. KMT messages were deciphered and read by the communists, sometimes before being used by KMT army commanders on the battlefield.
On 9 August 1949, the CDSA was formally abolished: its internal security and domestic counter-intelligence remit was assigned to what after the establishment of the PRC on 1 October 1949 would become the Ministry of Public Security, headed by General Luo Ruiqing. Li Kenong continued to serve head of a reconstituted political and military intelligence apparatus, following an instruction from Mao that "Li Kenong will look after Li Kenong's business." Li became Secretary of the Central Committee’s Intelligence Commission, Director of the Central Intelligence Department, a Deputy , and the Director of the Central Military Commission Intelligence Department.
Post 1949
In July 1951, continuing his role as a paramount negotiator with the enemy during the Korean War, Li joined the communist side at the Panmunjom Peace Talks in Korea as the leader of the joint PRC-DPRK delegation. In 1953 he was appointed as a Deputy Chief of Staff in the People’s Liberation Army. In 1954 he was a member of the Chinese government’s delegation to the Geneva Talks. In 1955 he was made Colonel General in the PLA and made Director of the CCP Central Investigation Department , which consolidated Chinese foreign intelligence efforts in one central department. In recognition of his long service, in 1956 Li was elected to full membership of the CCP Central Committee.
Death
Li suffered a stroke in October 1959 and was not seen in public again except for once in 1960. He died on 9 February 1962.
Sources
*''Zhongyang Weiyuan: Central Committee Members from the First Through the Fifteenth Party Congresses''
*''Biography of Luo Ruiqing'' ;
*Matthew Brazil, "China" in ''The Encyclopedia of Intelligence and Counterintelligence''
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