CLEVER interpretation of the motion helped the Chinese University's (CU) debating team scoop the championship at the 22nd Inter-varsity Debate held recently.
The debate is an annual competition between students of CU and the University of Hongkong (HKU).
The motion was ''Commerce, not politics, will bring the greatest benefits to the people of Hongkong''. Chinese University, which opposed the motion, felt that it was a difficult one to debate.
''Everything can be included in commerce and politics and thus it is very difficult to define the motion,'' said Cecilia Ho Sze-mun, captain of the CU team.
Cecilia said they could not totally negate the motion and, therefore, chose to argue that politics and commerce were equally important to the territory.
The main argument of CU was that politics and commerce should go hand in hand and only a stable political environment could bring about economic prosperity.
But HKU countered that Hongkong's success had been always due to commerce. They quoted as example the present Sino-British row which had cost local investors millions of dollar in stock market losses.