Japan had many strong players, and China performed so well in competition between the two countries that Fujisawa Shuko of Japan predicted that Chinese Baduk would overtake Japanese Baduk in the next 5 years.
The performance of Nie Weiping was especially spectacular. In 1987, many people believed him to be the world's top player.
This speculation regarding the relative rankings of the world' s top players led to the establishment of world competitions, the first of which was Ing Cup. Ing was a rich Taiwanese man who loved Baduk so much that he spent his whole life developing what he thought were the best possible rules for the game.
He had contributed towards the maintenance of a "Korean-Taiwanese exchange competition," not only to support the Taiwanese Baduk community, but also to promote the development of strong players. This exchange competition ended at about the time China started doing so well in competition with Japan. Ing, who had Taiwanese nationality but had been born in mainland China, was encouraged by this so much that he declared an international competition. He expected that Nie Weiping would win the first competition, bringing honor to China.

¡Ø The competition which established Korea as a major Baduk nation

Ing primary motivation in establishing the competition was his passion for the game of Baduk. He also wanted to use the competition to establish the set of rules he had developed, which he believed wholeheartedly to be more reasonable than any of the existing rules. Finally, he hoped that the existence of strong players such as Lin Haipung of Taiwan and Nie Weiping of mainland China would help to challenge Japan's claims to have the strongest players.

- by Bak Chi-moon, Baduk critic