Turning tables

Russian and Eastern European players still dominate the chess world, but Chinese and Indian players are starting to challenge.

Xie Jun was born in 1970, midway through the Cultural Revolution. Her dad taught her at a young age to play Xiangqi, a tactical game sometimes called ‘Chinese Chess’. She quickly showed promise, becoming Beijing Girl’s Junior Champion. There was a problem though, there was another good senior female Xiangqi player from Beijing, so the Beijing authorities suggested Xie Jun take up Chess.

Chess was just getting a foothold in China at this point. Chess was banned in China during the Cultural revolution, as a bourgeois game. Chinese players had resumed play from 1974.  Chinese chess received large financial backing from the Malaysian tycoon Dato Chin Tan Nam. He set up the “Big Dragon Project” with the aim of making China a world class chess team by the end of the century. Xie Jun benefitted from this additional funding.

She also benefitted from Chinese attitudes to gender equality. The Chinese Communist Party was committed to gender equality, at least in theory. During the Cultural Revolution, there was a big push for women to be treated the same as men. Mao’s quote “Women hold up half the sky” became a slogan. Xie Jun’s parents followed this trend and called her “Jun,” which was historically a boy’s name and means “soldier.” Her father took her at a young age to male dominated Xiangqi tournaments.  The authorities funded her chess lessons and provided her support from other strong players.

By 1988, Xie Jun was 16 and travelling around the world to play top players. In 1990 she won the candidates tournament to become the contender for the Women’s World Chess Championship in 1991. She was the underdog in the contest against Maia Chiburdanidze, the reigning champion since 1978.  Her odds got even longer when she went behind, losing the fourth game in the match. She recovered and against all odds won 8.5-6.5. The result was a shock, she was the first player from outside the Soviet Union to win the title in its 41 year history. She was hailed as a hero in China and granted the Presidential Medal of Honour by the Malaysian President. She held her world title from 1991-1996 and 1998-2001 and she is now the head of the Chinese Chess Association.  

The generation of Chinese players after Xie Jun have been even more successful. Hou Yifan is the second best female player ever and was women’s world champion four times from 2010 to 2017. Ding Liren is the third highest rated player currently and a potential future world champion challenger. In 1980 there were no Chinese players in the world’s top 100 players, now there are 9 (see chart above). Spurred by Jun’s success, China has done particularly well in Women’s Chess. Currently 13 of the top 100 women are Chinese (see chart below.)

While Xie Jun was learning chess, Manuel Aaron was at his peak. He was the Indian national chess champion nine times in the 1960s and 1970s. Like China, India has a long history with strategy games. Chess’s precursor Chaturanga was invented in Ancient India. However, Indians played a range of different chess variants, with differing rules in different areas. This meant top players could not play on the world stage. Aaron pushed for more Indians to play international chess and promoted it through editing a quarterly magazine and publishing articles in The Hindu, a national paper.

Chess really took off in India with the rise of Viswanathan Anand. Anand grew up in Chennai, Tamil Nadu (Manuel Aaron’s home state). His mother was keen on chess and taught it to him from a young age. He was a natural at the game and was nicknamed the “Lightning Kid” for his speed of play. He rose rapidly, representing India at the age of 14. By 17, he was World Junior Champion and by age 25 he was playing for his first senior world chess championship. Although he lost that match, he later became a five time world chess champion and the first from Asia. Anand’s individual achievements raised chess’s profile in India and blazed a path for younger Indian players. He was the first Indian to enter the top 100 players in the world in 1988, now there are 6 Indian players in the top 100 and another 48 in the top 1000.

The rise of chess in China and India are examples of how individuals can shape history. The rise of chess coincided with both countries growing in population and becoming prosperous. Similar games to chess were also popular in both countries.  However, other large, prosperous nations like Japan and South Korea have few strong chess players. Generational talents like Anand, Aaron and Xie Jun, as well as funders such as Dato Tan Chan Nimh sped up chess’s rise in both countries. While Russia and other European countries still dominate chess, Chinese and Indian players are on the rise.