Chess in China

China is a major chess power, with the women's team winning silver medals at the Olympiad in 2010, 2012, and 2014; the men's team winning gold at the 2014 Olympiad, and the average rating for the country's top ten players third in the FIDE rankings as of April 2023.^[1]

Chinese progress has been underpinned by large government support and testing competition in numerous tough events. As of May 2023, eight of the world's top hundred players are from China, as is the world's highest rated woman player, Hou Yifan.^[2] The current World chess champion Ding Liren and Women's World chess champion Ju Wenjun is also from China. However, countries like Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and Armenia still have an edge in experience over their Chinese counterparts.

Chess has only gained popularity in China in the last few decades, and while chess has grown exponentially in China, it still trails Chinese chess (xiangqi) and go (weiqi) by a small margin. There are about three million people in China who play chess, of which 300,000 are in the federation.^[3]

In 1974 a seminal meeting was held in Kuala Lumpur that was attended by Malaysian Chess Federation President Dato Tan Chin Nam, a prominent businessman; Lim Kok Ann, then President of the Singapore Chess Association; President of the Japan Chess Association Yasuji Matsumoto; FIDE and Philippine Chess Federation President, Florencio Campomanes and two observers from the Chinese Embassy. The aim of this important meeting was to figure out how to raise the technical level of chess in Asia in order to reach the highest levels.

It was decided to promote chess first in China where it was believed to have the biggest potential for success. The plan came to be known in Asian chess circles as the "Big Dragon Project" and the man behind it was Dato Tan Chin Nam. He was instrumental in gaining China entrance into FIDE in 1976 and has since backed Asian and Chinese chess in particular financially. The Big Dragon plan called for the Chinese to reach world-class status by the end of the century, something that was largely achieved.