Li Kwoh-ting was born in Nanjing in 1910, graduated in physics from National Central University, and went to Cambridge in 1934 to research low-temperature physics. When war broke out in 1937 he broke off his studies, returned to China and went into air-defense work.

He came to Taiwan in 1948 and worked at the Taiwan Shipbuilding Corporation. In 1953 he joined the industrial committee of the Economic Stabilization Board, drafting industrial plans under Yin Chung-jung — leaving engineering for economics. In 1963 he became secretary-general of the Council for US Aid, and in 1965 Minister of Economic Affairs. The next year the Kaohsiung Export Processing Zone opened: raw materials entered duty-free, finished goods left without declaration, and customs clearance shrank from days to hours. He once did the arithmetic in a meeting: a factory worker earned the country more foreign exchange in a year than a hectare of paddy.

In 1969 he moved to the Ministry of Finance and stayed seven years. From 1976 he was a minister without portfolio responsible for science and technology, pushing through the Institute for Information Industry in 1979 and the Hsinchu Science Park, which opened in 1980.

He died in Taipei in May 2001, aged ninety-one. On English documents he signed as K.T. Li, and most American officials and foreign investors knew him by nothing else.