China’s chess revolution: From being banned during cultural revolution to having both men’s and women’s world champions | Chess News

When Ding Liren defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi to win the world chess championship earlier this year, it was the first time in hory that a man from China had claimed the most vaunted crown in the sport. But it wasn’t the first time that China had produced a world champion in the sport.The Asian country has a long hory of producing women’s chess champions that could easily rival the Soviet Union’s track record of men’s champions — Xie Jun claimed the women’s world championship title in 1991, before players like Zhu Chen, Xu Yuhua, Hou Yifan, Tan Zhongyi and Ju Wenjun followed in her footsteps as world champions. contrast, Ding becoming the first world champion from China highlighted how the sport had found more resonance among women in the country.“It’s not that Chinese women are stronger than men. It’s because women from other nations are generally less invested in chess than Chinese women. It is common that women’s sports in China are better than men’s, because China’s investment in men and women is the same, which is enough,” former world champion Tan Zhongyi told The Indian Express during the Global Chess League earlier this year.

Currently there are four Chinese women in the top 10 of the FIDE ratings as compared to just one Chinese player being in the top 20 spots in the open rankings. This is in line with how women’s players from China have led the way for their male counterparts. The Chinese women’s team claimed medals at the Olympiad in 2010, 2012 and 2014 while the men’s team started finding itself on the podium at the Olympiads in 2014, 2018 and the online 2021 editions.
With both the reigning world champions being from China and the upcoming Asian Games being hosted in Hangzhou, there is a consensus in the Indian chess camp that China will pose the biggest challenge for Indian teams to claim gold at Hangzhou 2023.
Banned in China; Playing second fiddle
The fact that China now has both the reigning world champions is a far cry from the decade-long phase in the reign of Mao Zedong — popularly known as the Cultural Revolution — where the sport was outlawed because it was considered a remnant of capitalism.
In fact, in the early 60s, the governing body for the sport was the Chinese Xiangqi Association, before the Chess Association of China came into being and officially joined FIDE in 1975. The sport has always lived in the shadow of two more popular board games, Chinese chess (Xiangqi) and Go.
“China has its own types of chess, Go and Chinese chess, which have a very wide group (of following) in China. Chess is the third largest type of board game in China. But we have been working hard to promote and make more people know and love chess,” said Tan Zhongyi.
A lot of chess players from China — even world champions like Xie Jun and Xu Yuhua — started playing Chinese chess in their childhood before making the switch.
“When I was young, I could have tried my hand at any of the three: Go, Xiangqi (Chinese chess) and regular chess. I chose regular chess, because I just thought it was fun, which is why I stayed with it,” reigning world champion Ju Wenjun told The Indian Express at the Tata Steel Chess India.
There is a consensus among Chinese players that Ding’s title can popularise the sport.
“In China everyone plays Chinese chess. It’s just more popular than regular chess. But I believe that there will be more chess players picking up the sport in China after Ding’s title,” World No 24 Yu Yangyi told this newspaper via his compatriot World No 23 Wei Yi during the GCL.
Tan Zhongyi pointed out that chess was flourishing among pockets in China.
“In economically-developed coastal areas such as Shenzhen, Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu, there are excellent groups of chess enthusiasts. Ding is from Zhejiang, and Hou Yifan is from Jiangsu. Both are major chess provinces in China,” she said before pointing out that she and Lei Tingjie, who lost to Wenjun in the world championship battle this year, come from Chongqing.
“Lei and I belong to the Chongqing Chess and Card Sports Management Center, which has five types of chess and bridge. China’s professional system is very unique. We play chess for work, and we receive our wages. The selection of chess players in the center is very strict, and they are basically selected from a young age and trained at designated locations. These players were selected to represent Chongqing and compete with players from other regions. So there won’t be too many players in the team, and players who are not outstanding enough will be eliminated and new players will be added,” she added.
Six-storey training centre in Beijing
Both Ju Wenjun and current World No 1 Hou Yifan talk about a building in Beijing that used to be a training centre for chess players.
“We used to have our training centre in Beijing next to the centre for Olympic sports. It was a six-floor building for ‘mind’ games like chess and Go. Since the beginning of COVID, somehow chess players don’t train there anymore. Now we have two different training centres in two cities, one of which is Hangzhou,” Hou Yifan told Express.
Wenjun said that the idea of the building was that budding players could come and live there and work on the nuances of the sport. She too had a stint at the centre in 2004 when she was young. But just like the Indian chess stars train with their own coaches in private, she said that it’s unusual for top women’s chess players in China to train together.Most Read
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“We have known each other for many decades. I don’t think we will work together but we will come together and share some ideas and analyze some lines when we play for a team championship,” said Wenjun.

Hou Yifan, who has seen eras change in the sport, pointed out that while back in the day, chess in China was underdeveloped due to how much they could travel around the world, the entry of the computers and the internet has meant that knowledge was never out of their grasp.
“Chess is a non-Olympic sport. But compared to other sports the freedom that chess players enjoy is also higher. Compared to players from other sports, we have the flexibility to choose the tournaments to play in,” she said before adding: “China’s emergence just points to the new era of more countries emerging on the global stage than previous heavyweights.”