On March 19, 2022, the 2nd Chinese Chess (xiangqi) tournament among students of the Republic of Belarus was held at BSEU. Fifty three students took part in that competition, among them 47 participants are schoolchildren and 6 participants are university students. The age of the players is from 7 to 25 years old.

The tournament was organized by the Confucius Classroom of the Republican Institute of Sinology Named after Confucius of Belarusian State University in the educational institution “Belarus State Economic University” with the participation of the Belarusian Federation of Chinese Chess.

The participants were not only Belarusian students, 5 students from China also took part in the tournament. There were two different age categories: schoolchildren and university students. Among university students, the Chinese student of BSU Sun Zhen Ning became the champion.

Belarusian xiangqi is the leader in Europe in terms of the number of players; this type of intellectual game has been actively developing in the country since 2015. Chinese chess is the most popular intellectual game in the world, mainly due to its popularity in China, Vietnam and Malaysia, as well as among the Chinese and Vietnamese diasporas in other countries of the globe. Belarus is the only country where there are more  local players than representatives of these diasporas both in terms of the number of players and the strength of the game.

The Chinese chess club “Xiangqi” has been operating at BSEU since 2018 as part of the activities of the Confucius Classroom. Classes on playing xiangqi are regularly held; club members take part in different competitions. Everyone who would like to learn how to play Chinese chess and take part in the events organized by the club is welcomed to our classes that are held weekly on Saturdays at 4: 00 p.m. at BSEU (room 320, 2nd building).