Xiong was born in Shanghai on 15 March 1939, while his ancestral home in Nanchang, Jiangxi.

He joined the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in 1956 and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1959.

Xiong also served on the Central Leading Group on Taiwan,[1] He was an alternate member of the 14th, 15th and 16th Central Committees and is currently an adjunct professor at Qinghua and Beijing Universities and Chairman of the China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS), where he succeeded Xu Xin.

[2] In 1995, General Xiong was widely but incorrectly quoted as threatening to use nuclear weapons against Los Angeles.

"[4] Andrew Small, the author of The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia's New Geopolitics, characterizes this remark as "part explanation, part sarcastic jibe, delivered by (China's) military intelligence chief after one too many meetings with US counterparts on the subject.