?Just over three decades ago, China was a virtual nonentity in the arena of world chess. Up till then, two traditional Chinese board games, Weiqi (Go) and Xiangqi, had ruled that oriental roost. It was not until 1975 that China became a member of FIDE, the world chess body, and started competing in the biennial Olympiad held in Argentina three years later. Since then, however, something remarkable has happened; in a great leap forward, China has developed into a major chess power, winning a range of the international sport's highest honours. In 1990, Chinese women won bronze and their men placed sixth at the Novi Sad Olympiad, Yugoslavia.
The women retained their position at the next two Olympiads and, in 1996, graduated to silver. Meanwhile the men's team never ranked below the 15th place. China's spectacular rise in the global chess arena was cemented at the 2006 Olympiad in Turin, Italy, where its men's team secured silver and its women's team bronze, achieving the best result overall. In the four previous Olympiads, from Elista in 1998 to �alvia, Spain, in 2004, China's women's team proved invincible, creating history in the process.
Chess prodigy
The country produced its first chess superstar in Xie Jun who won the Women's World Championship three times and, with her optimistic personality and vivid attacking style, created a wave of popularity for the game in her homeland and throughout Asia. Now the country has produced a genuine chess prodigy in 16-year-old Hou Yifan who at 13 became China's youngest ever national champion and the youngest female in history to qualify for the Grandmaster title.
Following a string of impressive performances she is now the third highest rated female player on the FIDE list. Commensurate with its current status, China now has five players among the world's best one hundred. How and why did this giant of the east, proud of its own sophisticated culture, set out to scale the summit of international chess? It seems tempting to assume that the thrust was intended somehow to coincide, as a sporting corollary, with China's inexorable emergence as an economic power house. After all, didn't the once mighty USSR consider its three-decade hegemony over the royal game as "a hymn to the socialist republic?"
Whatever the motivation, stunned experts in the west are still asking themselves how in dragon's name did the Chinese become so strong in chess in so short time? One plausible answer comes from Professor David H Li of Bethesda, Maryland, USA, who explains that the rising chess stars from the Far East simply applied a special home-spun trick, emerging from the millions who have been playing Xiangqi, the native form of �hinese chess, for centuries. While there are different moves and rules between the two games, he observes, their underlying structure is similar–which is to grasp the spatial relationship.
Thinking process
He says: "Spatial relationship is another way of talking about the 'manoeuvrability ratio.' In relationship to the degree a game's spatial remanoeuvrability increases, its difficulty increases." His conclusion: "When one is accustomed to playing a game with a higher manoeuvrability ratio, he gains an advantage when playing a game with a lower manoeuvrability ratio." "Moreover, Xiangqi introduces synergy into your thinking process and playing style. By broadening your horizon, you start thinking more creatively; by improving your grasp of spatial relationship, you are visualising more dynamically, and by deepening your analytical skill you play more imaginatively." Supporting his point, Professor Li points out that Xie Jun was once the Under-10 Xiangqi Champion of Beijing and, like her, many of the players who have won international honours for China have had considerable experience in Xiangqi before moving on to western chess.
However legitimate Professor Li's contention may be, there can be no denying that the progress of chess in China has also been underpinned by generous government support, professional organisation and testing competition in numerous international events. A major impetus apparently came from the decision taken by a clutch of eastern countries who met in Kuala Lumpur in 1974 to organise the technical aspect of Asian chess. It was decided to promote chess first in China where it was felt to have the greatest potential for success. The plan came to be known in Asian chess circles as The Big Dragon Project, calling for the Chinese to reach world class by the end of the century–an objective that has been spectacularly achieved.
The visit to China of world champion Anatoly Karpov in August 1997 provided another giant boost for the game. The five exhibitions he played–three in Beijing–were broadcast live across the country and his one-hour talk show was viewed on prime time during the most popular TV programme in the country. So popular has chess become in China that the Chinese Chess Association, in its organisation, seems little deterred by the vastness of the nation. In most major cities, the three board games share a common headquarters called QiYuan (Chess Academy) having a dormitory and sharing rooms on the top floor. There paid officials run the day-to-day affairs and trainers conduct chess classes. With more than 1,000 chess trainers and some 300 professionals, all earning more than the national average wage, it is no surprise that the game is also flourishing in the nation's schools, even down to the kindergartens. Beware, the chess dragon is here.
