On November 23, the Henan Division of the 10th World Mandarin Debate Championships, organized by the Committee of the World Mandarin Debate Championships, and hosted by Sias University's Communist Youth League, was held at Sias University. The Founder, and Chairman of the Board of Sias, Dr. Shawn Chen, and Deputy Party Secretary (and head of the Communist Youth League), Li Huafeng, attended the opening ceremony. Teams from 21 universities across the province of Henan took part and were watched by a number of teachers and students.

Dr. Chen said that he hoped that people would use the platform of debates to create breakthroughs in innovation. Li Huafeng spoke about Sias and the importance of hosting the Henan Division of the World Mandarin Debate Championships.

Some of the 21 universities that sent teams were the Anyang Institute of Technology, Anyang Normal University, North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Henan University Minsheng College, and the Henan University of Engineering. Sias University was also represented. The ceremony began with an oath led by the team leaders and an oath by the judges' representative.

The preliminary rounds were held on November 23 and 24 and involved all the 21 teams from colleges and universities across Henan. The competition used a new format that made it more rigorous than previous years. The teams were divided into 7 groups with the competition focusing on a series of 6 debates about the development of society and youth, such as "whether the addressing of campus bullying should be governed by the university or society", "whether knowledge can alleviate young people's anxiety", "whether the reversal of public opinion embodied social rationality", and "whether works that joked about history had more advantages than disadvantages or not".

The winners of the Best Debater Awards were Zhao Liming, Xiao Jintao, Li Xiaodong, Wang Youpu, and Sun Naisen. The 8 universities whose teams advanced to the Second Round were Sias University, Henan Polytechnic University, Henan University of Technology, Henan University of Science & Technology, Shangqiu Institute of Technology, Shangqiu Normal University, Zhongyuan University of Technology, and Zhengzhou Shengda University of Economics, Business & Management.

The World Mandarin Debate Championships have been held every year since 2011, nine times thus far. The event attracts teams from over 200 universities across the world to participate in a competition that recognizes the most authoritative Mandarin language debaters from universities and colleges in China and abroad. The Second Round of the Henan Division will be held at Sias University on November 30.