Jeffrey Wasserstrom
The Shanghai Expo: Some things everyone needs to know
By Jeffrey Wasserstrom ( chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-04-29 10:03
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Not surprisingly, since the Expo is finally beginning to garner more headlines in America as its opening draws near , I am being asked a lot of questions about it. In particular, I am asked why China moved right from holding the 2008 Olympics to gearing up for this new grand spectacle."
In a few days, the countdown clocks in Shanghai will all finally hit zero. This is because, as China Daily readers are doubtless all aware by this point, May Day will also be opening day for the 2010 World Expo.
Despite all the attention the event has been getting in recent years in the Chinese media (and all the hype that has gone along with that attention), the upcoming high-tech Shanghai extravaganza was rarely written about or discussed in the United States until quite recently. Moreover, since many Americans (and many Europeans, too) think of World's Fairs as events that used to be important but are no longer very significant, when the 2010 Expo comes up in conversation here, people who have only a casual interest in China are often a bit surprised to learn how much time and energy the Shanghai authorities have been pouring into preparations for it.
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In particular, I am asked why China moved right from holding the 2008 Olympics to gearing up for this new grand spectacle. Luckily, I have an answer ready because the new book is all in a Q & A format, and several of the questions I address relate to the Beijing Olympics, the Shanghai Expo, or both of these events.
What follows is a sample question and answer from the book. My hope is that some of the information in this excerpt from the book will tell even China Daily readers who have followed the Expo build-up closely some things they didn't already know. It should also give them a sense of the book's overall approach and style (and those who want additional teasers can just run a web search for the book's title plus foreignpolicy.com or forbes.com and will find additional excerpts available online):
Why hold an Expo so soon after the Olympics?
Given the expense of the 2008 Beijing Games, the Chinese government's efforts to move straight into gearing up for a World Expo has baffled many foreigners. Also perplexing has been its efforts to cast the Expo as an Olympic-like event.
Part of this befuddlement comes from the fact that in Europe and North America now, World Expos, which are sponsored by an IOC-like organization known as the BIE(Bureau of International Expositions), tend to be seen as relatively minor affairs that do not necessarily take place in top-tier cities. In 2000 the German city of Hanover played host to one; in 2005 the Japanese city of Aichi did the honors; and among American cities, Knoxville, which would not be considered to even have a shot at hosting the Olympics, is among the urban centers that has held a recent World Expo (in 1984).
This makes it seem odd that local and national authorities in China have been promoting the Expo as an "Economic Olympics," and generally working hard to establish a connection between the Olympics and the Expo, in the hope that they will be perceived as a pair of linked mega-events, not a major one followed by a second-rate one.
The lead-up to Shanghai 2010 has followed closely some parts of the Beijing 2008 blueprint: the Expo, too, has a slogan ("Better City, Better Life" to match "One World, One Dream"), a theme song, and an educational campaign oriented in part around familiarizing people with the history of World's Fairs (especially the ones in which China participated and the best- known ones of the past, such as the 1889 Parisian Universal Exposition for which Eiffel built his famous tower). The "Fuwa" Olympic mascots have their counterpart in the Expo's "Haibao" .
In addition, in Shanghai during the lead-up to 2010, as in Beijing during the lead-up to 2008, the city has been undergoing a dramatic facelift, thanks to large infrastructure developments (including the building of new subway lines) and building projects (at the Expo site and in nearby areas).
As was the case in Beijing, the new development is being carried out on a staggeringly large scale and on land made available through relocations of longtime residents of neighborhoods.
Shanghai's Expo promises to be the most expensive World's Fair in history, the one that has the biggest urban foot- print, and the one at which the largest number of countries are represented by official national pavilions—display areas that, as in previous World's Fairs and World Expos are designed to showcase the cultures, histories, products, and in some cases also the latest technologies of specific lands.
One way to think of the 2008 Games and 2010 Expo is as a combination of events that China hopes will signal how far it has come in the course of a century or so, and how far behind it has left its former reputation as the "sick man of Asia." Its intention is to leave no doubt that it is now a place with not just one but two cities where great global events can be held.
It is not even certain, moreover, that the country will be content to have just a pair of urban centers, Beijing and Shanghai, in the special category of locales worthy of mega-events—for in late 2010, just after the World Expo is over, Guangzhou will host the "Asian Games," an Olympic-like spectacle, albeit one on a somewhat reduced scale as it brings together teams from across a continent only, as opposed to participants from around the globe.
Excerpted from China in the 21st Century: What everyone Needs to Know, by Jeffrey Wasserstrom, published by Oxford University Press. Copyright © 2010 by Jeffrey N Wasserstrom.
The excerpt provided above, with a different introduction and title, first appeared at "The China Beat" blog on April 24, 2010.