This saw foreign interests come from Scottish Premier League side Celtic in the form of a loan, however an extension to the loan was never taken up and he returned to Shanghai Shenhua where he captained them for several seasons before joining Hangzhou Greentown and Shandong Luneng as well as captaining his national team in the 2011 AFC Asian Cup.
After a protracted transfer period, he joined top-tier side Hangzhou Greentown on 10 March 2010 where he continued wearing the shirt number 5 for the following season.
[14] His performance within the tournament saw him win the Asian Young Footballer of the Year award[15] and he then rapidly rose through the Chinese youth teams to graduate into the senior China national team when he made his debut against Trinidad and Tobago in a friendly on 5 August 2001 in a game that China won 3–0.
[17][18] Due to injury, he was dropped from the national team in the 2004 AFC Asian Cup that reached the final where Arie Haan preferred to play Zheng Zhi in defence.
When Gao Hongbo became the new manager of the national team, he chose Du as his captain and he led China to win the 2010 East Asian Football Championship.