Shapiro has held citizenship of the People's Republic of China since 1963, before the Cultural Revolution. He is a member of the People's Political Consultative Conference, a governmental assembly of the PRC which ostensibly provides a forum for input from non-Communist political organizations.

Shapiro's connections with China began during the World War II, when he was serving in the United States armed forces. He was chosen to learn Chinese by the United States Army in preparation for a possible American landing in Japanese-occupied China. After attaining a law degree in the US, he went to China, arriving in Shanghai in 1947. There, he met his future wife, an actress named Fengzi (Phoenix), who was a supporter of the Communist Party of China prior to its ascent to power. Beginning in the Cultural Revolution, she spent 10 years under house arrest for her opposition to Mao's wife, Jiang Qing. She later became one of the most prominent drama critics in the People's Republic.

For nearly 50 years, he was employed by the state-run Foreign Languages Press (FLP) as a translator of works of Chinese literature. He is most well known for his highly-regarded English version of The Outlaws of the Marsh, one of the most important classics of Chinese literature. FLP recently reissued Shapiro's translation as part of a bilingual collection called Library of Chinese Classics. In his first autobiographical work titled "An American In China" (New World Press, 1979), Shapiro largely 'toed the party line' in relating both his own, and China's, modern history since the 1940s, while summarily dismissing his Jewish background.

• Jews in Old China - Studies by Chinese Scholars, a comprehensive collection of translations of papers by Chinese scholars about the ancient Kaifeng Jews and other Jewish papers by various Chinese scholars, and papers on Jewish-Chinese interaction
• 1997: My China: The Metamorphosis of a Country and a Man, previously available mainly in China, has been reissued as "I Chose China" (Hippocrene Books)

Translations

• Shi Nai'an, Outlaws of the Marsh
• Ba Jin, The Family (1933)
• Mao Dun, The Shop of the Lin Family & Spring Silkworms
• Deng Rong "Deng Xiaoping and the Cultural Revolution -- a Daughter Recalls the Critical Years".