As a member of the Chinese Taipei youth team, teen-aged Cheng Chih-lung was two-time scoring champion in the FIBA's Under-18 Asian Championship. At the age of 19, he became the then-youngest player on the Chinese Taipei adult team and helped his team to a third-place finish in FIBA Asia Championship 1989—Taiwan's best record in the tournament since its resumption of international sports participation in the mid-1980s. From then through 1999, Cheng played for the national team in various international tournaments and helped set the team's best records in all major tournaments in the region including winning Taiwan's first gold medal in men's basketball in the 1997 East Asian Games. As the representative star player of Taiwan, Cheng was selected to All-Tournament Team for the William Jones Cup international tournament for numerous times and to the FIBA Asian All-Star roster in 1998.