Teacher S Guide - Core File Argument Summaries

Teacher’s Guide - Core File Argument Summaries **Please see our Chalk Talk videos which do a great job summarizing and explaining the possible uses for each argument. Below are a basic, written explanation of each of the core file arguments. Human Rights Affirmative Summary: China is abusing human rights and violating democracy. In order to resolve those issues, the US will pass a law mandating that our multi-national companies follow the Sullivan Principles. These companies must comply with the Sullivan Principles—rules to make companies more ethical including safe working conditions, fair wages, unionization rights, and no workplace discrimination based on race, gender, religion, etc. With compliance by major companies in China, they will change their human rights policy to protect individual citizens.

Advantage 1: Human Rights 2015 was the biggest year for Chinese human rights abuses. Ethnic minorities, workers’ rights, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights were all trampled. Many people were fined or put in prison for minor offenses. Human trafficking and forced abortions have become common place. These human rights must be protected for moral and ethical reasons that transcend calculated DA impacts.

Advantage 2: Democracy China is violating the rights of their citizens to vote, speak out against the government, and the press is silenced. Governments of developing countries look to China to decide their political system. If these governments follow the authoritarian rule, then they will also abuse their people. Dictatorships do horrible things to their people like encourage or allow genocide, but are more likely to go to war because the people cannot check their authority.

Solvency US companies in China following the Sullivan Principles will solve for a few reasons. One, it will be a model to the rest of society and hopefully these efforts spillover throughout China. Two, high wages through fair pay will improve the middle class. Historically, strong middle classes have been the backbone of democracy and human rights protections by challenging the government. Third, China will make reforms because otherwise the companies will leave resulting in a huge tax and worker economic loss. North Korea Affirmative Summary: The North Korea Aff has the US make military concessions to China in exchange for China sanctioning North Korea. Basically, the US removes the Thermal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) which is a missile defense system near North Korea. Also, the US agrees to not attack North Korea. For that favor, China will push incredibly strong sanctions against North Korea including those on food and gas. These sanctions will bring North Korea to the negotiating table resulting in the end of their nuclear weapons program and human rights reforms.

Advantage 1: North Korean War North Korea is currently developing nuclear weapons and do a weapons test every few years. Their nuclear rise makes other surrounding countries uneasy. Those other nations develop stronger weapons as a deterrent which escalates into larger nuclear war. Removing military forces would make it harder for North Korea to claim that they need weapons because there’s less of a threat. Also, the sanctions would force North Korea to adjust its nuclear policy.

Advantage 2: Regime Change North Korea is literally the worst human rights abuser on Earth. They imprison thousands of their citizens, force them to work, and kill those that speak out against the government. These human rights must be protected in all instances because it is a legal and ethical obligation. Similar to the previous advantage, the negotiations cause reforms in their human rights policies and hopefully cause a “softening” of the leadership. Currency Manipulation Affirmative Summary China is manipulating its currency to make the country and goods more appealing to outside investors. China buys its currency to appreciate the value and sells it to depreciate the value. Generally speaking, they reduce the value of their currency to make their economy artificially competitive with other nations. The plan is to have the US file a complain to the WTO who will hopefully make China comply with international trade guidelines.

Advantage 1: US Economy The currency manipulation has caused an extensive trade imbalance with the US and China. We are more likely to buy their goods and send our companies abroad because of favorable conditions produced by currency manipulation. Therefore, an extensive trade imbalance has occurred and this creates millions of lost jobs. If this imbalance continues and China does not follow international trade norms, countries will be less likely to trade with China. The impact evidence states that free trade prevents international conflict through profit incentives i.e. countries will value making money over political disagreements. Filing a claim with the WTO will result in Chinese compliance with international trading norms and increase free trade overall. China Nationalism DA Summary This DA deals with how Xi needs to maintain his strong nationalist image by not working with the United States. If Xi looks like an American puppet, then he’ll have to assert himself in other issues like strengthening his military in the South China Sea.

A. Uniqueness: China is an independent nation and maintains the image of a strong, nationalist nation. They act on their own and the relationship behind China and the United States is strictly for business--the United States and China aren’t really mutual friends B. Link/ Internal Link: Compromises will make Xi look weak because all Aff’s must use diplomatic or economic engagement. To avoid looking even more vulnerable, Xi will have to avoid compromising on other issues, such the South China Sea. He will expand his military in the area to show strength. C. Impact: The South China Sea conflict will turn nuclear through escalation and allies balancing across the world.

Human Rights Link: Human Rights plays a large role in China politics, if China decides to change its policies because of threats from the United States, it will make them appear weak. They view human rights as part of their national image and the US using economic penalties is even worse to Chinese Nationalism.

Currency Manipulation Link: The aff causes instabilities within China because currency manipulation is the way that China gains an economic advantage. The US forcing China to change their policy will make them look like the US is pushing them around.

*Note: this has all four parts of a DA, it just has three cards. The link and internal link are in one piece of evidence. Diplomatic Capital DA

Summary This DA focuses mainly on the political and diplomatic capital of the incoming Trump administration. Diplomatic capital is the influence Trump has over other nations. Just like any human being, Trump can only focus on so many issues at once and he has a limited amount of favors he can use. This DA says that if he uses his capital up on something that isn’t really important, like establishing a better relationship with China, he won’t have any diplomatic capital left to use to help persuade Russia to fight ISIS, who could use nuclear weapons against the US.

A. Uniqueness: Right now, Trump is using his diplomatic capital to focus on Russia rather than China. B. Link: Trump must use his favors, time, and effort to pass the plan. Russia perceives the US relationship with China as a tradeoff with the US relationship with Russia, almost like a jealous sibling. If we spend time on China by doing the plan, Russia will pull away from the close relationship with the US that is only possible with the new Trump administration. C. Internal Link: Only working with Russia can produce diplomatic negotiations that lead to a cease-fire in Syria, one that allows all parties to focus on successfully fighting ISIS. Right now, the civil war and the competing interests of nations like Russia create a chaotic situation that allows ISIS to survive. D. Impact; If ISIS is not stopped, they will continue to kill thousands in the Middle East. Also, they will get their hands on nuclear weapons and use them. China Relations DA Summary The DA argues that having a strong relationship with China is necessary to fix global problems. Be careful here because some Affs will probably improve the relationship between the two countries. You should be reading this against an Aff that would probably upset China.

A. Uniqueness : China will give the new incoming Trump administration a grace period to establish what relations will look like with China, whether positive or negative, but is starting out by giving him the benefit of the doubt. B. Link: The plan upsets China and hurts the relationship. C. Internal-Link: Keeping a good relationship with China is one of the US’s top priorities right now. Specifically, this relationship is necessary to preventing countries from developing nuclear weapons and the spread of nuclear material. D. Impact: The more countries that have access to nuclear weapons or nuclear material will increase the risk of nuclear use. In addition, the more nuclear countries there is more fear and thus a greater chance that countries will use weapons first to protect themselves. North Korea link: North Korea and China are longtime allies and partners which means they have an especially close relationship. If the US pressures China to change this relationship, it will make the appear threatening. European Union Counter Plan Summary Basically, the negative argues that the U.S. is not needed to do the Aff. Instead, the European Union should do the plan or something very close. The purpose of this is to solve or fix some of the Aff harms.

North Korea The EU has been giving humanitarian aid to North Korea for a long time, and this shows how the relationship is quite strong. Also, the EU is a better option, because methods that the U.S. is currently trying (six party talks, us sanctions) are not currently working.

Human Rights This counterplan says that the European Union should pass legislation mandating multi-national corporations located in the People’s Republic of China to follow the Sullivan Principles outlined in the Lee evidence. This more effective than the AFF’s plan because historically the EU has used Corporate Social Responsibility which is very similar to the Sullivan Principles so they can easily solve for China. Also, the EU has more MNC’s than the US- there’s more at stake for them.

Currency Manipulation This counterplan says that the European Union should vastly increase its economic engagement with China over the issue of currency manipulation. The EU has enough diplomatic capital and economic tools to challenges China on this issue because, like the United States, the EU is negatively impacted by currency manipulation. The CP will work because China has listen to EU threats on trading practices in the past