He later served as chairman of the China Democratic League from 1996 to 2005 and a vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.
[5] When the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966, he was imprisoned and later sent to perform manual labour at a May Seventh Cadre School.
[4] After the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, Ding was politically rehabilitated and appointed vice chair of the Department of Mathematics of Peking University.
While he was away in the United States, Peking University ran a poll in 1983 among senior faculty members to select its next president, and Ding received the most votes.
After the Chinese government cracked down and massacred the protesters on June 4, 1989, Ding was forced to resign in August 1989.
[4][7] However, the prominent scholar Ji Xianlin called Ding one of the two best presidents in the history of the university, together with Cai Yuanpei.
[9] In 1956, Ding married Gui Linlin 桂琳琳, a faculty member in the chemistry department of Peking University.