Previously, he was a standing committee member of the Chinese Communist Party Xinjiang committee and the political commissar of the Xinjiang Military District, as well as political commissar of the Chengdu Military Region.

[2] Tian was born in Dongshuiyun Village, Houcun Town, Mengzhou, Henan Province.

He joined the Chinese People's Liberation Army in 1968 and served in Xinjiang for more than three decades.

[1] He succeeded General Zhang Haiyang as political commissar of the Chengdu Military Region in 2009.

[1] After retiring from military service, he was named a deputy chair of the National People's Congress Foreign Affairs Committee in August 2015.