The 29-year-old triumphed with 9.75 points after impressing with his acrobatic moves in Hall B of the Jakarta International Expo.

Hosts Indonesia also opened their medal tally with Edgar Xavier Marvelo taking the silver medal on 9.72 points and Chinese Taipei’s Tsai Tsemin came away with bronze on 9.70.

Defending champion Lee Ha Sung of South Korea finished way down in 12th place with 9.31 points.

Victory for Sun comes three years after he won the changquan world title in Jakarta.

At the last Asian Games, in Incheon four years ago, he was the winner of the daoshu event.

Sun contributed to a haul of seven gold medals for China on the opening day of action.

Four of the others came in swimming, while there was also success for fencer Qian Jiarui in an all-Chinese women’s sabre individual final and shooters Ji Xiaojing and Wu Jiayu in the 10 metres air pistol mixed team event.

Qian beat Shao Yaqi 15-9 in her gold medal match, while Ji and Wu prevailed with a Games record score of 473.2 points.

Today’s other fencing title went the way of Kazakhstan’s Dmitriy Alexanin, who defeated South Korea’s Park Sangyoung 15-12 in the men’s épée individual final.

Also tasting victory in shooting was Chinese Taipei's Lin Yingshin and Lu Shaochuan in the 10m air rifle mixed team event with a Games record of 494.1 points.

Further gold medals were won today in taekwondo with South Korea dominating the men’s poomsae events.

Kang Minsung overcame Iran’s Koorosh Bakhtiyar 8.810-8.730 in the individual final, while Han Yeonghun, Kim Seonho and Kang Wanjin beat China’s Zhu Yuxiang, Hu Mingda and Deng Tingfeng 8.480-8.020 in the team final.

Hosts Indonesia’s first gold medal of the Games came in the women’s individual poomsae event thanks to Defia Rosmaniar’s 8.690-8.470 win over Iran’s Marjan Salahshouri.

Rosmaniar could not hold back her tears when she was greeted by Indonesia President Joko Widodo and Indonesia Chef de Mission Komjen Syafruddin after sealing victory.

"Alhamdulillah [praise God], we won the first gold for Indonesia on the first day of taekwondo sports," Syafruddin said.

"One of them is because of the support of the President, who witnessed Defia's struggle and friends here directly."

Iran secured two of the five gold medals on offer in men’s freestyle wrestling after Hassan Yazdanicharati beat Lebanon’s Domenic Michael Abounader 10-0 in the 86 kilograms final and Alireza Karimimachiani defeated Kyrgyzstan’s Magomed Musaev 6-0 in the 97kg final.

Today’s other finals saw Mongolia’s Bekhbayar Erdenebat overcome North Korea’s Kum Song Kang 8-2 at 57kg, India’s Bajrang Bajrang beat Japan’s Daichi Takatani 11-8 at 65kg, and Uzbekistan’s Bekzod Abdurakhmonov defeat Kazakhstan’s Daniyar Kaisanov 3-2 at 74kg.

After the first day of competition, China lead the overall medal table with seven golds, five silvers and four bronzes.

Japan are second with three golds, six silvers and five bronzes, while South Korea are third with two golds, three silvers and six bronzes.