Zhongguo Qiyuan (Simplified Chinese: 中国棋院) is an official agency responsible for board games and card games such as go, bridge, chess and Chinese chess affairs under the All-China Sports Federation of the People's Republic of China.
In his book "The Genealogy of Chess" (which won the 'Book of the Year' 1998 award from the editors of GAMES Magazine), Li surveys evidence regarding the origins of chess and concludes that an early version of chess called xiangqi was invented in China in 203 BC, by General Han Xin, who supposedly drew on the earlier game liubo as well as on the teachings of The Art of War.