Head of Press, Easter 2018

Harry McNamara

Head of Press, Easter 2018

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Cambridge, 15 December 2018

PRESS RELEASE

‘This House Believes the Future Belongs to the East’ - Thursday 3rdMay

The second debate of Easter 2018 term took place on the evening of Thursday 3rd May, debating the motion: ‘This House Believes the Future Belongs to the East’.

The proposition was comprised of: Dr Nahee Kang, from the Department of International Development at King’s College London; Gideon Rachman, a British journalist, currently Chief foreign affairs commentator for the Financial Times; and first year lawyer Trenton Sewell, one of the Union’s Debating Officers.

The opposition: Chen Pokong, Chinese dissident author living in exile in New York; Assistant Director of the Great Britain in China Centre, Kathryn Rand; and former Japanese Diplomat who served as the Foreign Ministry’s section leader for North Korean affairs, Takeo Harada.

The debate began with Gideon Rachman arguing that the ‘basis of power is economic’, and that on these terms there has been a general shift in power towards Asia that began in the 1960s. He said this changed ‘the whole global balance of power’. As other speakers would who followed, Mr Rachman raised India, identifying that it was now growing faster than China and would be a ‘titan of the twenty-first century’.

Takeo Harada opened the debate for the opposition, raising the defining question, ‘what is the East?’, which would centre the discussion for a number of the other speakers. He raised an obvious diversity in the region, and referred to ‘the so-called East’, identifying that ‘China is unique in the region’. Undermining the terms of the debate, Mr Harada concluded that ‘the future will belong to China, not the East.’

Dr Kang from King’s College London followed for the proposition, with an argument centred aroundEast Asia’s model for development, suggesting that it had solutions to global challenges that would be inspirational globally. Like other speakers throughout the debate, Dr Kang raised the influence of ‘soft power’. She suggested that the model was not about free markets, rather ‘political and meritocratic bureaucracy’: the meritocracy of the Chinese model was questioned by other speakers on the floor and through interventions. She referred to a model of ‘competent leadership in the long-term interest’. Suggesting the western ‘neoliberal consensus has failed’, Dr Kang suggested that in the weston the issues of ‘security, shelter, food, and health’ the public does not ‘care if these are provided by the state or the free market’, using this argument to suggest that the eastern model resonated in the west.

Exiled Chinese author Chen Pokong, suggested that China was dishonest, raising untrustworthiness in trade agreements. His speech drew from historical examples throughout to identify patterns for the future. Again considering the terms of the debate, Mr Pokong proffered that the future will belong not to the East, but to China.’

Drawing from similar lines of argument of his colleagues on the proposition, Trenton Sewell made clear that the problem with the west is that the ‘system is failing’, going on to say that ‘the west has had time and has failed’. Mr Sewell, one of the Union’s Debating Officers, eloquently argued that some of the behaviour of the CCP has been ‘horrible’, but set this alongside moral problems in Europe throughout history, concluding that a region can ‘dominate the future without being an angel’. Chen Pokong intervened in the final proposition speech, using strong language against the Chinese: that the system had ‘killed creativity’ and accused them of ‘stealing tech from the west’. Sewell came to the conclusion that China was ‘winning on influence’.

Kathryn Rand brought the opposition to a close, again considering if China was the East. For the first time in the debate, Rand raised the issue of climate change, suggesting that China had played ‘an influential and positive’ role in the agreement at Paris, praising an awareness in China of the issue’s critical importance for the country’s future. Also, Rand identified feminist grassroots movements in China, highlighting that there was a ‘Me Too’ campaign in China, conceding that it was heavily censored. Rand changed the strain of the debate in her concluding remarks, suggesting that the east against west issue was a false dichotomy, advocating a further ‘partnership’ between the global regions in the future.

The house voted on their feet, seeing a considerable swing to the Opposition, who won the debate, in the division lobby.

END