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I will first rebut each of my opponent's contentions and then reaffirm my own points. Now, in my opponent's first contention, he states that with the rise of China, the United State's stance as a strong global leader is weakened. This argument falls beneath two main subpoints: the economic subpoint and the foreign relations subpoint. His first subpoint deserves merit, but this also counteracts many of his other arguments. He overexaggerates this point as to make it sounds as if China would completely crowd America out of the market. However, my opponent does not even quantify what sort of increase this demand would see. In fact, my opponent has not shown any proper correlation between the rise of China and increased demand of oil. Yet, using logic, with the rise of China, it would have to adhere to stricter pollution laws, meaning that the amount of oil it requires would decrease. The fact that China would have to transition to more environmentally friendly technologies would actually reduce the price on oil and help the United States. We would, in fact, have more control over oil. In his second subpoint, my opponent says that the foreign relations with the United States would suffer from the rise of China, but he once again fails to show a proper correlation. He assumes that with better foreign relations with China, there will be worse foreign relations with America. However, there is no "set total" for foreign relations. In fact, the rise of China has only helped US foreign relations. As I will restate, "According to Robert Sutter, a fellow at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (2005), this imbalance causes powers like Japan, Russia, and India to align themselves more with other world powers. " This clearly shows that with the rise of China, our influence in the area will actually increase because other powers will want to balance China's rise out by allying with another power: the United States. He does not address any of these 3 countries, but instead addresses countries like North Korea and Iran. It was not in the interests of the United States to ally with these unstable countries anyway, and yet the rise of China will help us in our foreign relations with countries that matter. Now, onto my opponent's second contention. We both agree that nuclear weapons in enemy countries would definitely pose a harm to the United States. However, what my opponent once again fails to show is a correlation. My opponent impies things directly against the facts. He paints a picture of China funding North Korea's nuclear program, where in reality, China does *nothing* of the sort. Within the last month, we have already seen that China condones North Korea's nuclear program. In a quote from Yang Jiechi, China's Foreign Minister, China was "strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed" North Korea's nuclear test. In addition, Hong Lei, China"s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, called for restraint from all parties involved with North Korea"s statement of conducting "a higher-level nuclear test" just this January. As to Iran and Pakistan, China is not and has not been shown to fund terrorist groups. In fact, the money they spend there is to counter terrorism, which is a benefit for the United States national security. Finally, my opponent's third contention talks about the effects of the rise of China on the US's economy. In his first subpoint, he says that the US is outsourcing many jobs which is bad for the US economy. However, there are two main points that show that this is not so. First, many of the jobs that are outsourced are so extremely below the minumum wage of the United States that they would never be likely to be in the United States anyway. Secondly, we need to look at the reason that jobs are outsourced in the first place. Companies decide to outsource jobs because they can make a profit. So the outsourcing of our jobs helps American companies prosper, which in turn creates more jobs in the future and reduces prices on our products. Most of the jobs shipped overseas would not even be possible as jobs in the United States and thus wouldn't help anyway. In his second subpoint, he talks about the lack of intellectual property laws hurting innovation and costing jobs. However, he once again fails to show a proper correlation! In fact, with the rise of China, we expect to see better living conditions for the citizens and thus better jobs. Along with this, China will likely implement stricter intellectual property laws in order to insure success as a country. Then, the rise of China would have helped us by preventing the theft of American innovation and jobs because they can begin to provide their own! In his third subpoint, my opponent addresses China's hoarding of savings, which depresses interest rates. However, the problem with this lies with the United States, not China. As a country, the United States debt has been increasing because they repeatedly borrow more and more money. If they cut down on the amount of money that they borrowed and paid back some of the debt, China can't just deny the US in paying back the debt. My opponent says that "Thus, as China continues to rise, and the amount of savings increase, the already massive harms posed to the United States are compounded on a global scale. " Here, he makes the assumption that the problem lies with China, that there is a correlation between the rise of China and the rising savings that they have. In contrast, they only hoard as much as the United States allows them. China only takes what is given to them, they can't take anything more. My opponent's implication is that we should blame the person who loaned us money for loaning us money in the first place! We can't reasonably expect China to just forget about the money that the United States owes without the money being paid back! China is doing us a favor by loaning us money in our time of need! On my own points, I will go over each contention in a brief summary of the contention. In my first contention, I have shown that the rise of China would be helpful to foreign relations, which strengthens our role as a global leader as well as protects our nation from threats like North Korea. In my second contention, I have shown that the rise of China provides something that the United States desperately needs: a growing market for US exports. China also has a huge interest in helping the United States economy succeed, so with the rise of China inevitably comes the rise of the United States. In my third contention, I have shown how the rise of China would provide amazing technologies and research that would help everybody. For example, it's definitely important to the United States to have new green technologies or find a cure to cancer. In subjects like these, along with many others, the rise of China would lead to economic funding that could help or save many, many people, including Americans. On an ending note, I'd like to remind the voters and my opponent that the resolution is "Resolved: On balance, the rise of China is beneficial to the interests of the United States. " This means that we only are talking about what happens with the rise of China, not just "On balance, China is beneficial to the interests of the United States. " What is in the past is in the past, unless the opponent can clearly show a pattern, provide statistics, or provide any sort of evidence showing a trend that comes with the rise of China. I look forward to my opponent's response. Thank you for your time.