[4] After this first victory at national level, he was selected for the 1993 Asian Athletics Championships and won the gold medal there, beating runner-up Bilal Saad Mubarak by a margin of nearly 80 cm.

He won for the first time at the Chinese Championships with a throw over nineteen metres,[7] then outdid both national rival Xie Shengying and Uzbekistan's Sergey Rubtsov at the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima to take another international gold medal.

The winning throw of 19.26 m (63 ft 2+1⁄4 in) was an Asian Games record and the first time the winner had cleared nineteen metres (this mark stood until the 2006 edition).

This mark of 19.20 m (62 ft 11+3⁄4 in) relegated Shakti Singh and Rubtsov to the minor medals as he became the first Chinese man to successfully defend the Asian Games title.

[13] Despite this form, he faltered in 1999, trailing to Wen at the national championships and falling outside the world's top 100 as he failed to clear nineteen metres during the season.

[14] Neither was victorious at the 9th National Games of China later that year as Liu took second place to Wang Zhiyong, marking the emergence of a new generation of throwers.