Xie Jun

Biography (1970)

The first Asian female to become a chess grandmaster, Xie Jun, was born in Baoding, Hebei, in 1970 and raised in Beijing. Xie began to play Chinese chess at the age of 6, and just four years later, she became the girls' champion of Beijing. Urged by authorities, she soon switched to international chess and won the Chinese girls' chess champion title in 1984.Her chess strength grew by leaps and bounds as just six years later, Xie Jun won the Candidates in Borjomi after beating Alica Maric in a tiebreaker and earned the right to challenge Maia Chiburdanidze. Xie dethroned Chiburdanidze (+4-2=9) to become the first Chinese World Chess Champion.In 1993 she successfully defended her title by blasting Nana Ioseliani. Three years later, she conceded her crown to Susan Polgar in a dramatic match only to regain the title in 1999 by defeating another championship finalist, Alisa Galliamova (8½–6½), after Polgar refused to accept match conditions and forfeited her title.After FIDE changed the format of the world championship to a knockout system, Xie won the title again, beating fellow Chinese player Qin Kanying 2½–1½ in the final, but opted not to defend it a year later.Well-liked in China, Xie did a lot to popularize chess in her country and the rest of Asia. In 2019, she was inducted into the World Chess Hall of Fame.