Xiang was born in Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province. He commenced employment in June 1984 and became a member of the CCP in December of that year. He pursued economic management at Hohai University and subsequently obtained a bachelor's degree by correspondence from the Jiangsu Provincial Party School. Xiang commenced his political career in 1983 as the Secretary of the Communist Youth League in Yunting Township, Jiangyin County. Subsequently, he occupied numerous significant township-level roles in Jiangyin, including Deputy Party Secretary and Mayor of Changzhou, Party Secretary and Chairman of the Changshu People's Congress, and Party Secretary of Qingyang Town. In 2001, he was designated Vice Mayor of Jiangyin while simultaneously holding the positions of Party Secretary and Mayor of Qingyang.[2]
In 2002, he assumed the role of Chinese Communist Party Deputy Committee Secretary of Jiangyin and was subsequently assigned to Xinjiang as Party Secretary of Huocheng County. In 2005, Xiang was appointed to the Wuxi High-Tech Industrial Development Zone as Deputy Party Secretary and deputy director of the Administrative Committee. He was then designated as Party Secretary of Lishui, Nanjing, while concurrently holding the position of Chairman of the County People's Congress.[3]
In 2011, Xiang ascended to the Nanjing Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party as a Standing Committee Member and Head of the United Front Work Department, thereafter assuming the role of Secretary-General of the Nanjing Party Committee. In 2015, he was appointed Deputy Party Secretary and Acting Mayor of Lianyungang, legally elected as Mayor in 2016, and subsequently elevated to Party Secretary of Lianyungang in 2018. He simultaneously held the position of Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Lianyungang Municipal People's Congress from 2019 to 2021.[4] Since July 2021, Xiang has held the position of Party Secretary of the Wuxi CPPCC Municipal Committee. In March 2022, he was appointed Chairman of the CPPCC Wuxi Municipal Committee.[5][6]
Xiang serves as a delegate to the 13th National People's Congress, a representative at the 11th Jiangsu Provincial Party Congress, a delegate to the 12th Jiangsu Provincial People's Congress.[7]