A native of Shandong Province. From 1991 to 1998, he studied in Greece, successively attending the school of Languages at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Department of Historical Archaeology at Ioannina University. He obtained his doctoral degree in 1998 and returned to China in 1999.

He is currently a professor in the Department of History, School of Humanities, Tsinghua University. In 2007, he was selected into the “New Century Excellent Talents Support Program” of the Education Ministry in China. In 2024, he was awarded the title of “Senior Translator” by the China Translators Association. His research fields cover medieval European history, Byzantine history, and the history of exchanges between China and the West. He has authored works such as Η Κίνα και το Βυζάντιο: σχέσεις- εμπόριο- αμοιβαίες γνώσεις από τις αρχές του 6^ου ώς τα μέσα του 7^ου αιώνα (Αθήνα 1998), Research on the Relations between China and the Byzantine Empire, A Collection of Papers on Historical Studies, A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays, and Marginal Studies on History of China. His translations include H. Yule’s Cathay and the Way Thither (vol.1), M. Bloch’s La Société féodale, Les Rois thaumaturges, and Pour une histoire comparée des sociétés européennes; F. Ganshof’s Qu’est-ce que la féodalité and R. W. Southern’s The Making of the Middle Ages etc.