 According to the chess historian H. J. R. Murray, the earliest certain reference to xiangqi in Chinese sources dates to 762 AD (earlier passages containing the character "xiang", which has several different meanings, cannot be proven to refer to elephant chess).The European form of Chess was only introduced in China during the 19th century but has never been as popular as Weiqi or Xiangqi.Alexander Alekhine was the first great chess player to visit China in 1933.