He served as the mayor and acting Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of Tianjin.

[1][2] Nie was born in Tianjin in 1928, with his ancestral home in Taoyuan County, Hunan.

[2] He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1948 and was a member of its 13th Central Committee.

When Tan Shaowen, Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of Tianjin, died in February 1993, Nie served as acting CCP Committee Secretary for a month before Gao Dezhan was appointed as Tan's replacement.

In the early 1990s, he successfully lobbied the central government to allow Tianjin to implement housing reform after the example of Shanghai.