[1] Dang was born as the eighth of nine children in a Catholic family in Getiao Township of Shanyang County, Shaanxi, China, on July 12, 1967.
He began a priesthood seminar in Xi'an, Shaanxi in 1985 but continued his theological education at the Sheshan Seminary in Shanghai.
In 2002 he was accepted to Shaanxi Normal University, majoring in psychology, where he graduated in 2004.
Prior to his diocese, he was the parish priest of St. Antony's Church, four kilometers west of the St. Francis Cathedral of Xi'an, since it opened in 2003.
On July 5, 2006, he succeeded Li Du'an as Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Xi'an.