Zhao won two gold medals at the
World Youth Chess Championships, in the Girls Under 12 section, in 1997, and in the Girls Under 14, in 1999. In 2002, she won the
World Junior Girls Championship in
Goa, India, edging out defending champion
Koneru Humpy on tie-break. This victory qualified her to the
Women's World Chess Championship 2004, in which she knocked out
Shadi Paridar in the first round, then lost to
Elisabeth Pähtz and therefore was eliminated from the competition. Zhao qualified thanks to her rating to the
Women's World Chess Championship 2006, in which she lost in the first round to
Maria Kursova. Later in the same year, she took part in the
2006 Asian Games, held in
Doha, and won the silver medal in the
women's individual rapid chess event. In July 2007, she won the Queens Woman Grandmasters tournament in
Bad Homburg and tied for first place with former women's world champion
Zhu Chen in the women's supertournament North Urals Cup in
Krasnoturinsk, Russia after both finished on a score of 6/9, but placed second on tiebreak. In this tournament she also achieved her final "
norm" required for the title of
Grandmaster; the first one was gained at the 2006
Women's Chess Olympiad. In October 2011, she won the
Nalchik stage, with a score of 9½/11. In July 2012, she finished seventh in
Jermuk on 5½/11. In the
Ankara event, she placed third with 7½/11. In the Grand Prix overall standings, Zhao placed fourth with 345 points. In April 2012, Zhao won the 2nd China Women Masters Tournament in
Wuxi. In the following month, she won the Asian Women's
Blitz Championship, held in
Ho Chi Minh City, on tiebreak over
Wang Jue and
Tan Zhongyi. At the
Women's World Chess Championship 2012 she made it to the quarterfinals, where she lost to
Dronavalli Harika. In January 2013, Zhao won the prize for best female player at the Masters event of the
Gibraltar Chess Festival scoring 7½/10. She finished second, behind
Hou Yifan, in the
women's standard event at the
2013 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games. Soon after she won the women's
chess tournament at the
2013 Summer Universiade in
Kazan, contributing to China's team gold. Zhao competed in the
FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2013–14. In January 2015, she won the
New Zealand Open with a score of 8/9. Zhao took part in the
Women's World Chess Championship 2015, where she reached the quarterfinals, losing to the eventual runner-up,
Natalia Pogonina. In the
2017 edition, she lost in the second round to
Padmini Rout. In December of the same year, Zhao won the gold medal in the women's
Basque chess event at the
IMSA Elite Mind Games in
Huai'an. In November 2018, she took part again in the
Women's World Championship; Zhao defeated
Carolina Lujan in the first round by 2–0, then went out in the second after losing to
Zhansaya Abdumalik in the tiebreakers.
Team competitions Zhao, as a first reserve, scored 11 points out of 12 (
performance rating of 2723) on board 4 in the 2002
Women's Chess Olympiad, held in
Bled. In
next edition, held two years later in
Calvià, she scored 10/12 on board 3 (performance rating of 2603) winning an individual gold medal. In 2006, she scored 10/13 on board 1 (performance rating of 2615) winning an individual gold. Zhao played first board on the Chinese women's team in the 2005
World Team Chess Championship held in
Beersheba, Israel. Two years later, she led China to victory in the first Women's World Team Championship with a score of 6½/8 (performance rating of 2693). Zhao Xue plays for
Beijing chess club in the
China Chess League (CCL). ==Honors since 2011==