Born in Penglai, Zhang began to train in the high jump at the age of 15.

[2] His first season of international competition came in 2010 and with his best jump of the year (2.23 metres) he took the silver medal at the 2010 Asian Junior Athletics Championships, finishing behind Mutaz Essa Barshim.

[5] He was selected for the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, where he cleared a personal best 2.31 m in the qualifying and went on to finish tenth in the final.

[7] At the 2012 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships Zhang repeated his regional placing behind former junior rival Barshim and was the silver medallist.

[12] Zhang narrowly failed to equal Zhu's national record of 2.39 m when he came second at 2.38 m behind Mutaz Essa Barshim (winner at 2.41 m) in the Eugene Oregon IAAF Diamond Meet on 30 May 2015.