The world’s biggest debate tournament has been embroiled in a row over censorship after it hosted a debate on Hong Kong democracy but later removed all online traces of the match.
Photo: Thailand WUDC 2020.
Last Friday, four top teams debated the motion “This House, as China, would grant universal suffrage to Hong Kong citizens” during the grand finals of the World Universities Debating Championship’s (WUDC) open category. The event was held at Assumption University in Bangkok, Thailand and drew over 240 participating universities from 50 different countries.
The motion was divisive among attendees with some Chinese spectators walking out part-way through. It was unclear whether they left voluntarily, or were told to leave.
“The debate started out pretty well…[then] I saw a bunch of people who are ethnically Chinese getting up and leaving,” a Hong Kong debater who witnessed the final told HKFP. “A whole row of people got up.”
The match was livestreamed on the competition’s official Facebook page, though viewers said it was halted mid-stream and the post later deleted. The motion was also removed from the contest’s official website.
While some of us were resting, eating too much Christmas pudding or catching up on pleasure reading, @UniofOxford Trinity finalist Chin Lee was winning the World Universities Debating Championship! Huge congratulations Chin!!! #wudchttps://t.co/9mBLzhHTlqpic.twitter.com/jWlyqn0WY7
WUDC organisers also anonymised the names of all Chinese and Hong Kong debaters and adjudicators on the results page, which would normally be accessible to the public. Some participants also requested their names be removed – including the two Oxford University champions.
In a public statement, the WUDC Equity Team said that “there was no involvement or pressure from any national body, embassy or official to ‘make the finals go away.’” It also urged people not to ask for more information, so as to avoid intruding into the “privacy and welfare” of the relevant parties.
The Equity Team – which was responsible for the competition’s code of conduct and resolving complaints – said that the livestream was removed because grand final competitors did not consent to appear on camera.
“This was true of most speakers in the round, and was communicated to the organising committee just before the round. However, due to language barriers and some miscommunication, the livestream continued to happen,” the statement read. “Once we found out, we decided to remove the video, [because] preserving what remained of speeches that were consented to would have been simply of little value to the community at large.”
Photo: Thailand WUDC 2020.
The Equity Team also decided to proactively allow debaters to redact their names from the results page after they were “made acutely aware of how speakers in the final and some other members of the community felt.”
The statement did not disclose whether the Equity Team received any complaints about the motion, and HKFP has contacted them for further comment.
Alleged Chinese pressure
Speaking to HKFP on condition of anonymity, the Hong Kong debater said that one of her teammates was part of the group that walked out of the grand final. Towards the end of the match, she discovered that the group was no longer at the competition venue.
“One of our teammates, who was a mainland student, had disappeared. We were all trying to look for him,” she said. “Then we received a message that said, he got on a bus to go back to the hotel, and that all the other mainland students had left as well.”
Her teammate refused to tell her if he was coerced into leaving and later rejoined the team for dinner, she said.
The Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Center (BITEC), where the WUDC grand finals were held. Photo: Thailand WUDC 2020.
As the results were announced at dinner, the Hong Kong participant said that she was “surprised and upset” to learn that organisers redacted the names of Chinese and Hong Kong contenders – as a debater’s international ranking is often seen as a badge of honour.
“One of the Hong Kong debaters approached the [organisers] and they said they had done so as a precautionary measure,” she said.
Most of the anonymised teams – given labels such as Candle, Briefcase and Hamburger – were labelled as belonging to the English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) categories.
A senior figure in the Chinese debating community, also speaking to HKFP on condition of anonymity, said he was not aware of any organised attempt to pressure Chinese attendees to walk out: “Quite a number of Chinese stayed till the end,” he said, adding that he didn’t know of any intervention by Chinese officials.
Citing second-hand accounts, he said that one of the Chinese teams at WUDC reported the Hong Kong motion to a senior teacher and “asked if it was fine.” He added: “The response they got from the senior teacher who was not in Bangkok seems to be ‘It is okay, no worries.’”
Photo: Thailand WUDC 2020.
As for the redaction of names, he said a request was filed to the Equity Team to ensure that Chinese participants would be able to attend future WUDCs.
Several Chinese debaters and adjudicators turned down HKFP’s requests for comment, with one saying that he was not given permission to speak to the press. Another told HKFP that turning the media spotlight on the issue may “cause trouble” for people in China – though it was unclear what the expected backlash would be.
The senior Chinese figure acknowledged that there was a “fear of trouble” among the Chinese debating circuit, but he was unsure if threats of backlash were real: “If there is ever any backlash, it is more likely that leftist university officials would reduce or cut support to debating, due to the fear of trouble,” he said. “Even so, apparently not all university officials are left.”
Censorship fears
In university-level debate tournaments, motions are usually set by an “adjudication core” made up of experienced and respected debaters. However, motions for competitions held in China had long been subject to external vetting.
Samuel Chan, a former ESL Champion at WUDC from Hong Kong, said that some motions would be instantly vetoed, sometimes by teachers who may not be familiar with the debating world: “In the past, the red line is Tibet, Taiwan and Xinjiang – now I suppose we can add Hong Kong to the list,” Chan told HKFP.
He said he had seen plenty of examples of self-censorship during his time competing and teaching in China, including at the 2015 Northeast Asia Open (NEAO) in Beijing where he served as part of the adjudication core.
According to Chan, the 2015 tournament was interrupted after a Chinese debater called the Public Security Bureau after losing a match on Taiwan independence. “She was very angry and reported us to the Public Security Bureau, and said that we were subverting China,” Chan said.
Assumption University. Photo: Thailand WUDC 2020.
“That night, she said that her safety was threatened and public security agents surrounded the whole hotel. The next morning, they surrounded the competition venue as well and took us in for questioning.”
Afterwards, the school did not want to continue hosting the tournament and some Chinese teams quit, Chan added. The adjudication core “wriggled out” of questioning by the Chinese authorities, and conducted the remaining rounds at the hotel.
Chan said that, sometimes, action may be taken out of self-censorship and fear of repercussions, rather than any official suppression. “Most of the time it’s not top-down, it’s the xiaofenhong reporting it up,” he said, referring to the nickname of young pro-Beijing radicals.
Photo: May James/HKFP.
Removing traces of the recent Hong Kong protests from the 2020 WUDC has raised new fears of the Chinese government exerting influence abroad. Chan told HKFP that it was “saddening and unfortunate” that debaters had to compromise their ideals during a debate tournament.
He said that it was entirely appropriate for the adjudication core to pick Hong Kong as a motion, and there are many ways for the topic to be addressed: “The [Hong Kong motion] embodied the spirit of the tournament, which is that you want to find a highly controversial topic, and have intellectuals debate it on the world stage.”
However, the redaction proved that the Chinese Communist Party had extended its influence to make people self-censor, Chan said: “Even for a group of so-called elites debating Hong Kong in a relatively safe environment, they still have this fear.”
“This shows how the values of the free world are eroding, and no point of our discourse is safe – even if you are outside of China. Unfortunately, I believe that this proves a debate tournament cannot be divorced from geopolitical reality.”
Additional reporting: Kris Cheng.
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TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
