It’s barely 10 a.m. on the campus of the prestigious Beida University in Beijing, and the gaming tables are already packed with student chess fans. Among them, several young women, concentrated. “Ever since I was little, I’ve seen my family play checkers, go, majong and chess. In China, we like puzzle games and we’re good too!”, smiles Liu Jia, 21, a fan of the 64 squares since she was 10 years old.
If the country has always been fascinated by strategy games, it is now for chess that young Chinese are passionate. “The number of practitioners has multiplied by five in ten years”, going from 6 million in 2013 to 30 million today, calculates Tian Hongwei, former professional player and general secretary of the Chinese Chess Federation. This growth is encouraged by the Chinese government, which launched a national plan in 2016 to promote this discipline, by opening specialized schools and organizing national competitions at all levels. “We want to encourage young people to practice this activity, because it can help them in their professional life, specifies Tian Hongwei, also an executive within the powerful sports administration. Chess develops thinking, concentration, rapid decision-making and stress management.”
Chinese schools have also started to integrate chess lessons into their curriculum. The development of applications allowing players to play anytime and anywhere on their mobile phone has also contributed to the popularity of this game among young people who are often addicted to screens. Better, more and more of them are embarking on a professional career, like Wang Hao, 33, one of the best players in the country. “I started playing at 6 years old and I joined the national team at 15, he says. Tournaments are organized every month, with sums of up to tens of thousands of dollars to be won. ‘euros.’
A “culture of excellence”
In ten years, China has organized three editions of the Chess Olympiad. Each time, the men’s team won the gold medal. But the consecration came on April 30 when Ding Liren, 30, won the world championships, after an epic final against the Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi. The same impressive successes in the women’s category, where six Chinese women have won this title since 1990, including the current holder, Ju Wenjun; and world number one, Hou Yifan.
Ding Liren believes that it was the strength of his mind that allowed him to win. During a game, “I suffered martyrdom for six hours, I was on the edge of the abyss, but I finally managed to draw,” he said after the match. competition, in front of national television cameras. He says he remembered Albert Camus and his concept of the man who doesn’t give up: “the idea that when you can’t win, you have to do everything to resist”.
For the emblematic winner, “in China, young people are thirsty for competition and success, and chess offers them an opportunity to measure themselves against the best in the world”. “We have a culture of excellence and perseverance, and chess is a way to pass it on to the younger generation,” added Xu Jun, coach of the men’s national team. Words that echo the government’s political strategy. The communist regime sees in this game a means of reinforcing its soft-power on the international scene. The performances of the national players were thus presented as a sign of the excellence of Chinese education, as well as a means of promoting the values of the country, such as the sense of effort and discipline. “The game of chess is a tool to train an elite who can lead the country in the future”, declares very seriously the coach of the Beida student club. But this ambition is not without danger: “There is a risk that young players will be pushed to devote themselves exclusively to chess, to the detriment of their personal and social development”, tempers the champion Wang Hao, who pleads for this enthusiasm is accompanied by a more global policy to train “balanced” individuals.