Willment Leong is among the top chefs in Thailand, specializing in French cuisine. But his most recent trip to Beijing was for the Chinese Cuisine World Championship, which was held last week with contestants from 16 countries and regions, including the United States, Italy and South Korea.

The competition, initiated by the China Cuisine Association to be held annually, is the only international Chinese cuisine competition recognized by the World Association of Chefs Societies, a global network that promotes culinary excellence and education. It was groundbreaking in the way that it adopted rules and standards suiting characteristics of Chinese cuisine for judges to rate the contestant teams, according to Jiang Jun-xian, president of the China Cuisine Association.

In the past, Chinese chefs had to succumb to competition rules and standards that are made for the Western culinary art, if they wanted to compete at an international competition, Jiang explains.