 He was promoted to Hangzhou Greentown's first team squad by Takeshi Okada in 2012.Okada described Chen as a high potential player, and he said that even in Japan or Netherlands, it's hard to find a player at Chen's age could play as good as Chen did.On 11 March 2012, Chen made his Super League debut in the first round of the season which Hangzhou Greentown played against Qingdao Jonoon.