In the evening of 19th November, 2013, the opening ceremony of International Chinese Debating Competition was held successfully at the lecture hall in BNUZ International Centre. The competition is jointly sponsored by Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League, Guangdong Provincial Department of Education, Guangdong Provincial Department of Culture, and Guangdong Provincial Union of Students, co-sponsored by Zhuhai Municipal Propaganda Department and organized by the Committee of Communist Youth League of BNUZ. Honoured guests who attended the ceremony include: Chen Bishan, Deputy Head of School Department of Zhuhai Municipal Committee of Communist Youth League; Lin Pengfei, Regional Manager of CMCC GD for Xiangzhou District; Zhang Jinle, CEO of Xinmao Restaurant Management Co. Ltd. Tang Wei, BNUZ’s Chairperson of the University Council, Dai Wei, Vice President of BNUZ, and Chen Xianbing, Chief of Committee of the Communist Youth Committee also participated in the opening ceremony.

Prof. Tang Wei firstly made a speech to extend warm congratulation and welcome to the participants. He noted that Debating Competition is a good platform for student to enhance their abilities in an all-round manner. He hoped that the International Chinese Debating Competition will, as a stage for marketing the Zhuhai city's urban identity, trigger a new boom of cross-cultural communication among college students from different countries.

Mr. Hu Jianbiao, Supervisor of BNUZ’s debate team, said that it was very exciting to meet friends who shared the same interest in this competition. He commented on the innovation of this year’s competition and pointed out that adhering to the concept of “Professionalize the Competition”, teams from all over the world will have more opportunities to communicate with and learn from each others.

This year’s International Chinese Debating Competition has altogether invited 24 prestigious universities, including universities from Mainland China, Hongkong, Macao, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and so on. Professional judges include Jiang Changjian, Lin Zhengjiang, Xiao Junren, Lu Yiming, Hu Jianbiao and so on.

International Chinese Debating Competition is one of the four world-renown Chinese debating competitions, which is the second international debating competition held in mainland China after the “International Varsity Debate Varsity”. It is also one of BNUZ’s brand project of cultural activities on campus. The contest approach of “Three-round Voting”is adopted and the whole process of evaluation is open and transparent, to ensure the fairness of the completion. Also, the debate topics are mainly hot spots of the society, making the competition much more attractive.

Lasted to 24th November, the agenda of the competition is divided into four parts: from 20th Nov. to 21st Nov., 24 debates will be held to weed out 16 teams; on 22nd Nov., the final eight will be in the in the knockout stages and the mass-election of “International Good Debate” supervisor teams will be conducted; 23rd Nov. is the day of semifinals for both the two competitions, and on 24th Nov., the finals will be held and so as the demonstration competition to salute the 20th anniversary of International Varsity Debate Varsity.