At yesterday's closing ceremony for the Shanghai World Expo, China's Prime Minister, Wen Jiaobao, expressed lofty sentiments regarding the event's impact: "Only when the ideas behind the accomplishments of civilizations are shared can they become treasures for all of humanity and be carried on forever."
Judging by these poetic, open-armed standards, the Expo has been a colossal failure. Despite the official tally of 73 million visitors, the vast majority of them mainland Chinese, the world's response to Shanghai's self-proclaimed moment in the sun has been been a gigantic, collective yawn. And no wonder. Anyone who visited the fairgrounds themselves has been, yes, impressed by the architectural marvels of the 250 or so corporate and country pavillions. (China, Spain, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Italy, among others, hit the mark. The United States' effort was compared to a suburban office complex.)
But the combination of interminably long lines, few sparkles of on-the-ground humanity, robotically-chirpy volunteers and limited green space left many visitors, local and foreign alike, underwhelmed. Furthermore, the Shanghai government did precious little to entice foreign travelers. Its public relations efforts -- a bizarre fusion of propagandist "bureaucrat-ese" and brain-dead imagery dominated by an omnipresent, neotonized, pale-blue creature named "Hai Bao" -- ensured overseas figures remained below projections of (only) 5 million people.
According to meticulously orchestrated closing-day news reports, Shanghai Expo was all about a 21st century global village for which China had morphed into a beatifically-smiling citizen. As the Shanghai Daily wrote, "For the past six months, the Expo site was a place where people could see rare cultural treasures from around the world -- such as the Bronze Chariot and Horse sculpture from China's Qin Dynasty, the statue of Athena from Greece and the masterpieces of French Impressionist artists -- and also get a taste of the world's diverse cultures through more than 20,000 events."
Please.
The central and municipal governments, despite pervasive bilingual signage and visitor booths scattered throughout the city, had its eyes focused squarely on domestic concerns. With these objectives as benchmarks, however, Shanghai Expo 2010 was a success.
In China, everything is a means to an end. Shanghai Expo was conceived and executed to catalyze a host of internal breakthroughs. Most importantly, in a system riven by political factionalism and ever-present fiscal competition between central, city and district-level organs, the event forged order from chaos. Petty, bottom-up, back-room infighting was supplanted by top-down, command-and-control decision making. In the years leading up to Expo, infrastructural breakthroughs -- ten subway lines, several bridges and a new ring road, high-speed trains between Shanghai and neighboring cities, massive real estate/retail developments for which eminent domain concerns were swept aside -- were unveiled with clock-like efficiency. To boot, a massive clean-up effort has left behind a sparkling urban landscape. Store signage has been upgraded, roads have been repaved and sidewalks are infinitely more walkable then even a year ago.
China's Everyman has been impressed with the government's ability to, yet again, mobilize resources for large-scale projects. Despite clumsy efforts at behavior modification -- illegal DVD shops went further underground, cigarettes (well, at least ashtrays) were banned from many restaurants, slogans promoting "civilized" behavior were everywhere -- the population fell in line. (I issued a plea to "forge a harmonious society" during Expo when my lane house neighbors placed trash outside my door. It worked.) Work units, government teams, senior centers and high schools made pilgrimages to the fair ground by the busload. Very few grumbled. Wide-eyed smiles and a lack of cynicism were hallmarks of a hundred thousand forced day trips. Opening and closing ceremonies, bereft of spontaneity or joy, nonetheless rivaled Beijing 2008 in terms of scale and pageantry. And the fairgrounds themselves, while sanitized to the point of Stepfordization, were colossal, epic in every sense. Waiting in interminable lines, the masses oohed.
Finally, Chinese citizens were impressed with the government's ability to cajole foreign leaders to acquiesce to its demands, a harbinger of the Middle Kingdom's 21st century superpower status. Every country -- from America to Russia and Croatia to Nigeria -- fell in line. No one dared not to participate. China's ability to coerce foreign leaders to bend to its will, even for a second-tier international event, reassured the hoi polloi.
In the end, Shanghai's World Expo was not an international event. It was orchestrated as a domestic power display, in the same vein as the country's 60th anniversary military parade and this fall's Asian Games. The government's goal was a Herculean projection of organizational mettle and global stature. Despite acute awareness of the game their government was playing, the Chinese -- even, grudgingly, the anti-Shanghai Beijingese -- acknowledged the job got done.
As for the idea that this event was an excuse to make China look great, it clearly was, as is every international event held in any country. One of the most infamous examples was the 1936 Olympics, which the Nazis used to glorify themselves.
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Reading some of the self righteous "USA USA USA!" comments and how dare a country like China even conceive of upgrading their infrastructure such as HST- High Speed Trains construction ,and new subway systems in 22 cities while the Governor of New Jersey puts the brakes on a new rail tunnel connecting his state with New York City.
Anybody has visited China recently will gladly will tell you about the new airports, pot hole free roads and brand new rail stations . You will see solar powered water heaters on the roofs' of many new and now older apartment buildings. The Chinese no longer use incandescent light bulbs favoring the new environmentally friendly light bulbs.
To say that High Speed Trains are a financially unsound idea is pure
undiluted rubbish!
Ask Europeans and Japanese if they think that HSTs are financially "unsound and value destroying?"
When visiting America many Europeans and Japanese including are amazed that America's passenger rail system still lives in the mid to late 20th century.
EngChina
To say that America, or anyone else, can "learn" something from this display is odd: is the lesson that governments should spend billions to show-off without practical benefit? That they should increase the income gap (America has apparently taken this to heart). That they should stoke antique notions of nationalist fervor? WiIl you point to the 2012 Olympics, in the event that they are successful, as a sign that the UK "can get things done" or is somehow a serious and nationalistic regime?
The PRC government has only "gotten things done" because it has written the rules that govern its own extent of power. Even its accomplishments are, in many cases, accidental and the result of China's demographic peaking over the past 30 years. They have had it easy, and it will only get tougher from here on out.
Now, to say that American and the Western world should not learn from China is pompous and silly at the best, especially for someone who has a Hong Kong flag as an avatar. China can learn from the West just as vise versa. Clearly AlexABC has never experienced the delays and overruns in mega projects in the US before. I have, as I went to college and then graduate school in Boston, I like everyone else waited and waited for the Big Dig project complete. It took over a decade and had $10 Billion+ cost overrun, not to mentioning bad work which resulted in ceiling from one of the tunnels falling off and killing a driver. I am not the only person who wondered just what the hell went wrong. If Chinese government can complete a project more than ten times in scope in one tenth of the time, why shouldn't American at least try to understand how this is done? As a taxpayer I certainly wish US politicians could learn how to do things more efficiently..
If there is any fervor going on here it would be the anti-China folks here, rarely have I seen people who are so interested in others failing.
http://huffingtonpost.com/bob-jacobson
There are six in all, beginning with "The Privatization of Public Diplomacy: The US Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo," and ending with "Can the United States Regain the Moral Authority to Host an Expo in 2020?" In between is a sordid tale of political intrigue, personal mendacity, and literally a $100 million in tax-exempt investments that's gone ... somewhere. Let me know what you think!
(My email is bluefire@well.com .)
Chinese from all over China visited Expo, and for many this was the only way to get insight into other parts of China as well as the rest of the world. What is wrong with that? Would you rather have them stay at home?
I remember the modern Chinese history, cultural revolution and all, and I can only say that I am very impressed with all the achievements of Chinese people.
There is a huge difference between every day life in China and government decisions.
Some of the pavilions were better than others including Germany and Japan, who lead the fair with far reaching and beautiful vision. The nearly 2500 pictures I saw were much more spectacular than is reported here.
The USA Pavilion, it was reported by them lacked funding and needed corporate backing to even open the doors. The bad part about this was that it showed... everyone in China now believes that we are owned, lock stock and barrel by the shill.
Its time to make a choice as to our future. Setting examples like this on a world platform is shameful.
I believe we are capable of much more and missing these opportunities to express who we are and our vision is a clear mistake.
Far from yawning, it was a missed chance at a collective glimpse into what should be the signpost indicating what is ahead.
As the article stated, the whole point of this whole expo was to show that the government can get things done, and it did. I cannot imagine any other government who can pull this sort of project through in this short period of time without large cost overruns. Looking at the development of much similar projects in the US such as the Big Dig, I think Americans can definitely learn something here.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/LK02Ad01.html