{"id":2447031,"date":"2019-07-31T22:24:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T04:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/oxford-style-debate-to-be-held-in-aspen-on-friday\/"},"modified":"2019-07-31T22:24:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T04:24:00","slug":"oxford-style-debate-to-be-held-in-aspen-on-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/oxford-style-debate-to-be-held-in-aspen-on-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"Oxford-style debate to be held in Aspen on Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Haven\u2019t gotten your fill of political debates this week? Then there happens to be one Friday in Aspen, where foreign-policy pundits will square off over the current state of relations between the U.S. and China.<\/p>\n

Unlike this week\u2019s two Democratic presidential debates, however, the focus will be on a single topic with four participants \u2014 two on each side \u2014 while the audience will determine the victor.<\/p>\n

The debate, set for 4 to 6 p.m. at Paepcke Auditorium on the Aspen Meadows campus, will be the latest in a series put on by the nonprofit media company Intelligence Squared US.<\/a><\/p>\n

Aspen Strategy Group, a division of the Aspen Institute think tank, is co-hosting the debate.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur view is that our kind of arguments are actually good for the state of our discourse,\u201d said moderator John Donvan, author and journalist. \u201cWe can be a model of how to disagree respectfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

The debate will be presented in an Oxford-style format, with both sides arguing either for or against a predetermined statement, or motion.<\/p>\n

Kicking off with opening remarks from each side, the debate will include an intra-panel discussion and then a Q&A session with audience members. Closing arguments from the participants will wrap up what Donvan calls a \u201ckind of a jousting match for the brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s showdown will examine the tariff wars between China and the U.S., as well as their pursuit of dominance in advanced technologies and the tense relationship between the two powerhouse countries.<\/p>\n

The motion is \u201cThe Recent U.S. Policy Towards China Is Productive,\u201d and the audience will vote either for or against it before the debate begins, as well as after the final arguments are delivered. The outcome will be determined by the greater percentage change between the first and second votes.<\/p>\n

Representing both sides of the debate will be individuals well versed in foreign policy.<\/p>\n

Pro-motion debaters will include Michael Pillsbury \u2014 described by President Trump as \u201cthe leading authority on China\u201d\u2014 who worked in the defense secretary\u2019s office under both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He\u2019ll be joined by Kori Schake, who worked in the National Security Council and is the deputy-director general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.<\/p>\n

Debaters arguing against the motion are Graham Allison, who was Bill Clinton\u2019s assistant secretary of defense and is a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and Jake Sullivan, a former national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden and a senior policy adviser to Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign in 2016.<\/p>\n

Even though a majority of Aspen\u2019s year-round population leans to the left \u2014 nearly 70% of Pitkin County\u2019s electorate<\/a> voted for Clinton in 2016 \u2014 Donvan said that doesn\u2019t mean the anti-motion debaters will have a home-field advantage of sorts at Paepcke Auditorium.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot necessarily,\u201d he said. \u201cWe ask our audiences to really participate meaningfully, to really come in and listen with an open mind, since ultimately we are going to be asking them to vote and consider the most persuasive argument.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paying close attention to what\u2019s being said is key for those who will vote, he said, noting some audience members might leave Paepcke Auditorium a bit surprised about a shift in their mind set.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that our goal is to change people\u2019s minds,\u201d he said. \u201cThe goal is to get people to listen critically to the arguments presented.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donvan, a four-time winner of the Emmy Award for his work as a journalist, said he spends about 25 hours preparing and researching for the debates he moderates \u2014 that includes studying videos of the debaters \u201cso I can get the rhythms of how they speak and how they talk.\u201d It also helps that he has spent more than three decades as a political correspondent for ABC News, making him well grounded in topics like China, or such previously debated ones as globalization<\/a>, fracking and even Wal-Mart<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Haven\u2019t gotten your fill of political debates this week? Then there happens to be one Friday in Aspen, where foreign-policy pundits will square off over the current state of relations between the U.S. and China. Unlike this week\u2019s two Democratic presidential debates, however, the focus will be on a single topic with four participants \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2447031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 06:48:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}