Although born in Baoding, Hebei in 1970 and raised in Beijing, the ancestral home of Xie and her parents is Liaoyuan, Jilin. At the age of six Xie began to play Chinese chess, and by the age of 10 she had become the girls' xiangqi champion of Beijing. At the urging of government authorities, she soon began playing international chess. Despite indifferent training opportunities, Xie became the Chinese girls' chess champion in 1984. In 1988 she tied for second–fourth places at the World Junior Girls' Championship in Adelaide. At the age of 20 Xie won the right to challenge for the women's world title, and in 1991 she defeated Maya Chiburdanidze of Georgia, who had held the title since 1978, by a score of 8½–6½. In 1993 she successfully defended her title against Nana Ioseliani. In the summer of 1994 she was awarded the full Grandmaster title. She lost the 1996 Women's World Chess Championship to Susan Polgar of Hungary but regained the title in 1999 by defeating another championship finalist, Alisa Galliamova, after Polgar refused to accept match conditions and forfeited her title. In 2000, FIDE changed the format of the world championship to a knock-out system, and Xie won the title again, beating fellow Chinese player Qin Kanying 2½–1½ in the final. In Guangzhou in April 2000, Women's Champion Xie played a match with former World ChampionAnatoly Karpov. Billed as a "female vs. male chess contest", the match consisted of four games at normal time controls and two rapid games. The four-game portion was won by Karpov 2½–1½, and the rapid-play portion also went to Karpov, 1½–½. A hero in China, Xie became widely known for her optimism and vivid attacking style. Her success did much to popularize international chess in her country and the rest of Asia. Xie Jun proved to be the first of a number of strong Chinese women players, the others being Zhu Chen, Xu Yuhua, and Wang Lei. She was also an important factor in the Chinese women's team winning the gold medal at the 1998 Chess Olympiad in Elista in Kalmykia, Russia. In July 2004, she was awarded the titles of International Arbiter and FIDE Senior Trainer. In April 2019, Xie Jun was appointed as the new president of the Chinese Chess Association.
