Following Prof. Zhang’s roundtable, the Debating Society held its first debate of the semester. On this occasion the motion was that continued Chinese investment into oil exploration would be beneficial to the world economy. Past debates have pitted the SPPM team against their counterparts at the Department of International Relations, but on this occasion teams were mixed. The motion was defended by Anatole Weinberger-Pang (MID ‘12) and Stephan Mothe (MID ’11), while Richard Ghiasy (MID ’11), Adrienne Joy (MID ’11), and Callum McQueen (IR ’11) represented the opposition. The debate was graciously moderated by Torian Richardson (MID ’11). The audience, which cast its pre- and post- debate votes to define the outcome, was composed of about 30 students from both MID cohorts, IR, IMPA and the Chinese MPA program.
In all, the exchanges were animated, provocative, and at many points humorous, and participants displayed a high level of understanding of the forces involved in global economics, addressing the motion and asking sharp questions from various angles. The Debating Society holds these formal debates once a month, and after the good turnout in for the first event of the semester, the next should be a success as well. If you are interested in finding out more about the organization and participating either in operations or as a debater, please don’t hesitate to contact Stephan Mothe or Richard Ghiasy at stephanmothe@hotmail.com and ghiasyrichard@gmail.com respectively.
(From Stephan Mothe, MID 2011)
