What is the difference between perpetual check and perpetual chase in xiangqi?
These answers restate the rules implemented by our open-source engine, which follows the WXF laws and is regression-tested against the official 110-diagram repetition casebook. Where an answer refers to a specific position, that position lives on the linked reference page, where the build verifies it against the engine before publishing.
Direct answer
The target is the difference. Perpetual check is a repeated, unanswerable-except-by-repetition threat against the general specifically. Perpetual chase is the same idea aimed at any other piece, threatening to capture it over and over in a way that forces it to keep moving. Both rest on the same principle: whoever is forcing the repetition must vary, or lose.
Why check gets its own name at all
Because the general's safety ends the game outright, a repeated check is treated as unambiguously serious in a way that has never needed the same case-by-case scrutiny as chasing an ordinary piece. Perpetual check is simply a loss for the checker essentially everywhere the game is played.
Why chase is the harder of the two to rule on
A check is binary: either the general is attacked or it is not. Whether a piece is being genuinely "chased" depends on protection, on whether a capture would actually be profitable, and on what else is happening on the board, which is exactly why chase cases dominate the official casebook while check cases rarely need it.
Related questions
Can a game feature both at once?
Yes, and mixed cases, one side checking while the other chases, are specifically covered by the casebook rather than a simple written rule.
Which one is more common in practice?
Perpetual chase comes up more often, since there are far more pieces to chase than there are ways to check a well-defended general.
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