Ju Wenjun was born in the year China got its first-ever World champion in chess. Xie Jun’s victory over Maia Chiburdanidze at the 1991 World championship did not merely end the Soviet Union’s — or Georgia’s — domination of women’s chess, it also marked the emergence of China as the undisputed superpower.
Xie has had quite a few successors, Ju being the latest. Zhu Chen, Xu Yuhua, Hou Yifan and Tan Zhongyi enjoyed reigns as the queen of international chess between 2001 and 2018.
