Oxford undergraduate becomes first Singaporean to win ‘triple crown’ at prestigious debate tournament

SINGAPORE — An Oxford University undergraduate, who turned to debating when a school drama club rejected him, has become the first Singaporean to clinch the coveted “triple crown” at the World Universities Debating Championship.

Mr Lee Chin Wee, 24, a final-year Oxford undergraduate, swept the titles of overall champion, best speaker in the finals, and overall best speaker at the debate tournament, which is considered to be the most prestigious in the world. He received his awards last Friday (Jan 3).

The annual tournament, known the “Worlds” for short, is into its 40th year and was hosted by Thailand’s Assumption University from Dec 26 to Jan 4.

Mr Joel Law, president of the Debate Association (Singapore), told TODAY on Tuesday that while the association does not keep track of the nationalities of the tournament’s champions, it is sure that Mr Lee is the first Singaporean to have won all three titles in the competition.

Speaking to TODAY from Thailand, Mr Lee said that he had initially wanted to pursue drama in secondary school.

“I didn’t plan to debate when I started secondary school. I wanted to do drama, but the drama club rejected me — so I thought I’d do some debating instead, and fell in love with the activity.”

It helped that Mr Lee was able to use elements of drama, which he had picked up from classes in primary school, in debate as well.

For instance, he was able to use his drama skills to improve his body language during debates. He was also able to modulate and project his voice to convey emotion.

Mr Lee, who is pursuing philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford, said that winning the Worlds was a “surreal” experience.

“It’s what every young debater dreams of achieving, and it was something that I thought I’d never be able to accomplish. I’m very honoured to be the first Singaporean to have won.”

The former debater from Raffles Institution said that although he was the chairperson of his school’s debate club and had even won the Singapore Secondary Schools Debating Championships in 2011 and 2012, he was not a “star debater” back then.

Even after making the cut to the Oxford debate team in 2017 during his first year as an undergraduate, Mr Lee doubted his abilities.

“You worry that you’re not good enough, and that you might end up embarrassing the university,” he said.

However, he was comforted that Singaporeans have fared well on the international debate circuit, with other Singaporeans having previously made the Oxford “A team”, which is the university’s best-performing team.

For instance, Mr Li Shengwu, who is now an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University, was part of the Oxford “A team” that made it to the finals of the Worlds in 2010.

Four Singaporeans have also won the overall best speaker award at the tournament, including Asst Prof Li in 2010, and Dr Tan Wu Meng, who is Member of Parliament for Jurong Group Representation Constituency, in 2003.

The other winners are Ms Chitra Jenardhanan in 1995 and Mr Ashish Xiangyi Kumar in 2015.

This year’s competition, which saw more than 240 universities from 50 countries take part, pits four two-person teams against each other in each debate round. A panel of judges then ranks the four teams in order of their performance.

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Students debated issues of politics and current affairs. For instance, one motion was whether the Mexican government should work with one cartel to monopolise the drug trade rather than have different cartels fighting over the black market.

Mr Lee and his teammate Jason Xiao, a Canadian, went through a total of 14 debate rounds before beating the University of Belgrade, Yale University, and the University of Macquarie in the finals.

For them both, it was not a guaranteed win when they headed into the championships, because they had missed out on representing Oxford University at the Worlds in 2019 after performing poorly during their university’s trials.

“Both Jason and I were very upset because we gave it our all in the trial, but came up short.

“What made it worse, I think, was that we were semi-finalists in the competition in 2018, and knew that we were good enough to make the team if we performed to our best,” Mr Lee said.

The two took a break from debating after failing to make the cut in 2019, with Mr Lee channelling his energies into other activities such as participating in the university’s Strategy Group which gives students business consulting experiences.

The break allowed Mr Lee and Mr Xiao to clear their minds and refocus, and eventually saw them returning stronger to end Oxford University’s decade-long drought in this year’s competition.

Now, Mr Lee is enjoying his win with a holiday in Thailand.

“To be frank, there’s very little else you can achieve once you’ve become the top speaker and also world champion!" he said.

“I’m very satisfied with our achievement and I’m definitely going to take a step back from debating for the time being. Now it’s time to focus on final examinations for Oxford, after which I’ll be returning to Singapore to work in finance.”

Already, Mr Lee’s aptitude for debating has had ripple effects within his own family.

The oldest of four siblings, Mr Lee said that his success has piqued his 13-year-old sister's interest in debating.

"I don’t come from a debating family, but my sister has started debating in her secondary school so I’m very excited for her."