Born in Fujian, he competed in jumping events in his youth and set bests of and in the long and triple jump to finish in the top two at the 2008 Chinese High School Championships. He cleared sixteen metres in the triple jump for the first time in 2009, en route to winning the Chinese High School Games title. In his first international competition, he cleared a personal best of to take second place at the 2010 Youth Olympics, finishing behind Cuban Radame Fabar. He ended that year having improved his best mark to .