Liu was born on in Jingjiang, Jiangsu, Republican China. When he was nine years old, his father was killed by Communists. When he turned sixteen, he was drafted into the Nationalist Revolutionary Army, and he left for Taiwan in 1949. After leaving the military, he worked for the state-run radio and later as a reporter for the "Taiwan Daily News", where he was sent on assignment to Hong Kong, Manila, and the Vietnam War. After marrying his wife Helen Cui Rong-Zhi, he became a foreign correspondent in 1967, and moved to Washington DC, where he took graduate classes at American University and worked part-time as an interpreter for the State Department.