Resolved: The People's Republic of China should substantially reduce its international extraction of natural resources.

Debating from Beijing’s chair

The agent is the People’s Republic of China, which scrambles the usual American-policy instincts. Pro has two options. It can argue that reducing extraction serves interests China itself would recognize, such as its standing in the Global South, its debt exposure on resource projects, and long-run resource security through recycling and efficiency. Or it can defend a frankly normative reading where "should" means what a responsible power ought to do. Con gets surprisingly comfortable ground: extraction feeds the refining and processing dominance that makes China the indispensable node of the global energy transition.

The clean-energy paradox

The topic’s best clash is the green paradox. Pro says extraction devastates ecosystems and communities, from cobalt mines to deep-water fisheries. Con answers that the same minerals are the feedstock for solar panels, batteries and grid storage, so cutting extraction substantially slows decarbonization worldwide. Pro’s strongest counter is that reducing extraction doesn’t have to mean reducing supply: recycling, substitution and efficiency can hold output steady while shrinking the extractive footprint. Whether judges believe that decoupling is real usually decides the round.

Sovereignty and hypocrisy

Expect Con to use the double standard. Western powers industrialized on extraction, and host countries sign these contracts voluntarily, often preferring Chinese financing because it arrives without governance lectures. Pro shouldn’t dodge this. The answer is that debt-heavy, enclave-style extraction is a bad development bargain on its own terms, and that consent from host-country elites doesn’t mean host-country populations benefit.