In July 2012, Li was transferred to Beijing to serve as the executive deputy director of the
General Office of the Chinese Communist Party, being groomed to replace
Ling Jihua. Three months later, Li was also named Secretary of the Work Committee for Organs Directly Reporting to the Central Committee (). Regarded as a "rising star", Li was elected to the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party at the
18th Party Congress held in November 2012, which was unusual for a General Office Chief (Ling Jihua, for example, was not a member of the Politburo), signaling that Li would hold significant clout under Xi Jinping's
administration. Additionally, as was customary of the general office chief, Li was also named a Secretary of the Central Secretariat. In 2013, Li was also named chief of the General Office of the newly formed
National Security Commission. Li has played a major role in facilitating a strong relationship
between China and Russia, and is the first General Office chief in post-Mao China to have played such an active role in foreign affairs. For example, in 2015 Li was sent as a "special envoy" of Xi Jinping to meet with
Vladimir Putin in Moscow. During the
2015 Moscow Victory Day Parade held in Moscow, Li was a member of the Chinese delegation. Li was known to have accompanied Xi on the
leader's various meetings with foreign guests, including on Xi's 2015 state visit to the United States. Li, seen as one of the most influential members of Xi Jinping's inner circle, was considered a "
dark horse" candidate for the 19th
Politburo Standing Committee, China's top decision-making body which took office in 2017. Li was an alternate of the 16th and 17th Central Committees of the Chinese Communist Party and was a full member of the
18th Central Committee. In September 2017, Li became a deputy leader of a leading group headed by National People's Congress Standing Committee chairman
Zhang Dejiang, which drafted the
2018 constitutional amendment. ==Standing Committee==