The passed pawn is a criminal, who should be kept under lock and key. Mild measures, such as police surveillance, are not sufficient. – German grandmaster Aron Nimzowitsch, author of the perennial bestseller, My System.
China’s appearance in world chess has been as sensational as it has been sudden. The breakthrough began with the women chess players when Xie Jun won the world chess championship title in the nineties. China’s chess men are brilliant also, but it is their women who have reached the pinnacle of international chess stardom. It is only in the nineties that China entered our consciousness as a chess-playing nation, and at the turn of the century, a serious chess-playing nation.
At the 37th chess Olympiad in Turin, the men’s team came in second, and the women’s team third, for the best overall result among all participating countries. Chinese progress has been underpinned by large government support amid a number of testing competitions to sharpen player skills. There are approximately three million chess players in China, but Chinese chess [xiangqi] and go [weiqi], are still much more popular. China’s chess federation boasts a total of 300,000 members.
China is beginning to set itself apart because of how heavily it is investing in the development of its human capital. In chess, for example, the evidence is unambiguous, and as we say in Guyana, “as clear as daylight.’’ Hou Yifan, 19, won the World Championship title three weeks ago thereby becoming the fourth women’s world champion to emerge from China in the last 20 years. China has yet to
