Li Cunxin << lee shwin sihng >> (1961-…) is a former ballet dancer from China who later settled in Australia. He gained fame for his autobiography, Mao’s Last Dancer (2003). The book tells the story of how Li grew up in a poor, rural Chinese village and was selected by the Chinese Communist Party to become a ballet dancer with the Beijing Dance Academy. Li attracted international attention when he defected (left his country) to live in the West in 1981. A motion-picture version of the book was released in 2009. The Australian director Bruce Beresford and the Australian screenwriter Jan Sardi worked on the film. 
Li was born on Jan. 26, 1961, in a village near Qingdao in Shandong Province. At age 11, he was selected by a cultural advisor to Jiang Qing, the wife of the Chinese ruler Mao Zedong, to attend the Beijing Dance Academy. Students at the academy trained for nearly 16 hours a day, six days per week. Li attended the academy for seven years.
In 1979, when he was 18, Li was awarded a cultural scholarship to study at the Houston Ballet in Texas in the United States. Li soon began to question his allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party. In 1981, Li married Elizabeth Mackey, an American dancer. Although Li was scheduled to return to China a few days later, he informed Chinese authorities that he wished to remain in the United States. He then was detained at the Consulate-General of the People’s Republic of China in Houston, causing an international incident. Li eventually was allowed to stay in the United States, but his Chinese citizenship was taken away. In 1982, Li became a principal dancer with the Houston Ballet. He performed with the company for 16 years.
Li and Mackey divorced in 1987. Later that year, he married the Australian ballet dancer Mary McKendry. In 1995, Li and his family moved to Australia, where he became a principal dancer with the Australian Ballet. Li retired from dancing in 1999. He then became senior manager at a stock brokerage firm in Australia. Li became an Australian citizen in 2000. From 2012 through 2023, he was the artistic director of the Queensland Ballet in Australia. In 2019, Li was made an Officer of the Order of Australia. The Order of Australia is Australia’s highest award for service to the country or to humanity.
