SCU Debate Club Wins 2nd Prize in 2019 Chinese Debate World Cup

Soochow’s Debate Club was the runner-up in the 2019 Chinese Debate World Cup after six days of verbal battles from May 25^th to June 1^st in China University of International Relations in Beijing. The varsity representing Soochow was led by Sheng-Wei Lin of the Department of Philosophy, who won three major personal awards including Final Round Best Debater, Overall Best Fourth Debater, and Overall Best Debater.

The other five members of the team included Shan-Yong Hu, Bo-Xiang Yao and Shang-Hong Li from the Department of Philosophy, Qi-Hong Zhuang from the Department of Law, and Yi-Yang Lu from the Department of Chinese Literature. They, as well as Lin, are all members of Soochow’s Debate Club.

The varsity stood out and beat many rivals among a total of 48 Mandarin-speaking teams from China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore and other parts of the world, before losing to the team from Renmin University of China in the final with the scores of 7–14 over the topic of “Which can better reflect the worthiness of young people’s hard work? The process or the outcome?”

Despite the loss, Soochow varsity’s debating skills and impassioned words impressed and excited both the judges and the audience. And Sheng-Wei Lin’s stellar showing in each round was particularly amazing and remarkable.

After the final, the official WeChat account of Chinese Debate World Cup posted a video titled "Pay tribute to Soochow varsity: Debate like a fighter, behave like a gentleman" to recap the performance of the six debaters from Soochow’s Debate Club. With a focused theme of “sparkling team spirit,” the event host portrayed Soochow varsity as an excellent example of debaters who are humble in victory and confident in defeat.

The Chinese Debate World Cup is one of the largest and most prestigious debate contests in the Mandarin-speaking world. The topics for debate have been highly diverse across a plethora of issues, ranging from international sports, youth development, information media, and artificial intelligence, etc.