How China became No 1 in chess and what it means: the world will ‘look at Chinese people differently’

 

How China became number one in chess and what it means: the world will 'look at the Chinese differently'

China's rise to the top of the global chess rankings is no fluke, but the result of its decade-old Four Steps plan, determination and help from its neighbors There are 32 seconds left on the clock for Russia's Ian Nepomniachtchi as he tries to secure a victory that was denied him in his last attempt at the 2021 International Chess Federation (Fide) World Championship. His opponent, China's Ding Liren, has the advantage in time and pieces on the board and one move could spell the end for Nepomniachtchi, who has dominated most of this year's final, on April 30 in Astana, Kazakhstan .

As the fourth and final 10-minute tiebreak begins, most onlookers think it will lead to a tie, which will then lead to a series of one-minute shootouts. But Ding moved his rook to G6 to threaten Nepomniachtchi's queen and is looking for a risky win. Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world?

The black pawn on A2 is Nepomniachtchi's reply as he sits up straight and takes a breath. He looks to the side, stretches out his arm, and scatters the neatly arranged pieces he picked up during the match. The Black Knight rolls and falls to the floor. He knows he is beaten. Ding makes one last move with his shooter and – checkmate – Nepomniachtchi wastes no time reaching out to shake Ding's congratulation.

Stunned by the results, Ding sits with his head in his hands for nearly a minute as his counterpart leaves the hall. Finally - after the decades it took to get here - Ding stands and leaves on the same path, his first moments as the new world champion in men's chess and the first to represent China. Ding became China's 30th Grandmaster in 2009 at the age of 16. old. In the same year, he decided to try a professional career in chess.

He was named China's chess champion in 2009, 2011 and 2012, defeated all other players in the annual national singles championships, and represented his homeland in the Olympics from 2012 to 2018. He led the Chinese team to victory in the 2014 Asian Team Chess Championship in Tabriz, Iran. "The best thing about me is persistence," said the 30-year-old Ding at a press conference on May 18 at the Chinese Chess Academy in Beijing.

The significance of Ding's success and China's Four Steps strategy in the country's rise up the world chess rankings cannot be understated. "The significance goes beyond chess itself," says Zhu Guoping, dean of the Chinese Chess Academy. "This will make the world look at Chinese chess and Chinese people differently."

Chen Zude, who served as the first president of the Chinese Chess Association (CCA) since 1992, defined these four steps to win the Women's World Singles Championship, then the Women's Team World Championship, followed by the Men's Team World Championship and the World Singles Championship.

Xie Jun of China won the Women's Singles Championship in 1991, held the title until 1996, and regained the crown from 1999 to 2001. Xie was an integral part of securing the gold medal for the Chinese Women's Team at the 1998 Chess Olympiad in Elista, Kalmykia, Russia. .

In 2007, when Fide officially created a separate World Team Championship for women, China won gold in Yekaterinburg, Russia, and has since won three times in the biennial. China's men first tasted victory at the Fide World Team Championship in 2015 led by Ding, won again in 2017 and 2022, and then came Ding's big win in Kazakhstan this year.

China's Ju Wenjun recently defended her individual world title against Lei Tingjie, also of China, and the nation has cemented its position as the game's dominant power, currently holding the men's singles and women's singles championships. The men's and women's team championships will be held in Poland this September. All good progress, especially since Ding wasn't even supposed to have a title this year. He was called up only because 10-year reigning champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway surprisingly decided to step back, allowing third-placed Ding to sit opposite second-placed Nepomniachtchi in Astana.

However, the victory of the new world champion is a direct result of CCA's work to achieve this goal even before the birth of Dingo. Wenzhou, Ding's hometown, became known as China's "Chess City" due to its thriving chess community and several prolific players born there. "Last month, Chess.com's web and mobile apps had more than 3 million active users from India, but fewer than 75,000 were reported from China," says Chess.com business analyst Nate Baker. Of the approximately 50 million total monthly active users of Chess.com and the mobile apps each month, millions could be from China flying the flag of other countries,” adds Baker. China's entry into the world chess community helped the country open up to the rest of the world

Quah Seng Sun, a member of the Malaysian Chess Federation in the late 1970s

Both Baker and Leon Watson, head of public relations at Chess.com, expect a surge in Chinese users following Ding's win. "If he has even a fraction of the influence in China that Magnus Carlsen had in Norway," says Watson, "then the game will be Chinese very soon."

Ding was introduced to chess at the age of four. In 2017, at the age of 25, he became the first Chinese player to qualify for the Candidates Tournament, which decides who will fight for the world title, leading to a winning streak of more than 100 matches without defeat in the classic game ( the classic game allows at a minimum of 65 minutes per player compared to the different but always faster rounds of rapid and lightning). It was the longest such streak in high-level chess until World Champion Carlsen broke the record in 2019.

Raised in a growing chess culture, Ding was encouraged to play, learn and compete freely. But chess was almost non-existent in the closed country until 1974, when then Fide Vice President Florencio Campomanes led the effort to dominate the game. It was the first meeting of Asian chess presidents to come up with a new idea. anchor the game in the region.

"The concept of the Big Dragon Project was simple: choose an Asian country as a pioneer to bridge the gap in chess technique and knowledge between Asia and the Soviet Union, Europe and North America," says Quah Seng Sun, the committee. a member of the Malaysian Chess Federation in the late 1970s.

"While India could have been singled out, the country sided with the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore to give China, with its larger population and potential, a chance." And so, a year after the Penang meeting in 1974, Fide voted to accept the CCA as a member.