What Does China Bring to the Expo?

By Fridtjof Sobanski & Zhu Yue

With the opening of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, China, which hosted the 29th Olympic Games just two years ago, stood in the limelight of the world again.

The Chinese people got very excited over the Expo. With it, they’ve got another opportunity to show the world their development and progress in the past 30 years; they’ve won another chance to closely connect with the world. In addition, the Expo in Shanghai, whose theme is “Better City, Better Life”, can help the urbanization in China.

The organizing department of the Expo also got excited. When declaring the news that Shanghai won the right to host 2010 Expo, Vicente Gonzalez Loscertales, secretary-general of the International Exhibitions Bureau said: “Today, the world saw the birth of a great hope.”

Once upon a time, the Expo was a grand fair to exhibit mankind’s most exciting progress and latest technologies. The previous Expos had the Crystal Palace and Eiffel Tower established. Edison made his light bulbs and other inventions known to the world and the Americans proved their leading place in space technology by displaying a piece of stone from the moon in the Expo. At that time, people consider the Expo as important as the Olympics.

But now, with the development of information technology, people don’t need to wait for an Expo to see what happened to the world and what significant changes the other countries have made. Any new things will be acquainted with all the people in the world through the Internet soon after they were born. The show of innovations, which was once the biggest appeal of the Expo, has already become unnecessary. The Expo, which has become a combo of industrial and tourism products, is losing its grace. It is no longer as influential as the Olympics and World Cup.

But China revitalized it. It is the first Expo held in a developing country and also the one with the largest number of exhibitors and perhaps the largest number of visitors. Most of all, it is held in China, which is on its way to be the second largest economy. Different from the other Expos, the foreign countries’ participating in the Expo aim at showing themselves to the Chinese people. No country wants to miss this opportunity – the USA, which had missed several Expos, also returned. The huge population as well as the growing national power aroused the world’s interest in building close relationship with China.

The theme of the Expo is of no importance to the exhibitors because it doesn’t contain featured innovations. What about the new technology? The low-carbon lifestyle, 3D video technology, the new energy system and so on have been mentioned in people’s daily lives for so many times before the Expo. The biggest appeal of the Shanghai Expo is its hosting place – Shanghai – the most dynamic city in the most promising country in the world.

We usually say that the world fixes eyes on China because of the Expo. Actually, it is better to say that the world fixes eyes on the Expo because of China. To revitalize the Expo is a better demonstration of China’s development and power than hosting the Expo.

When snooker began to lose its audience in the world and gradually became a game only known by the British, China spawned Ding Junhui, Liang Wenbo and some other good Chinese snooker players. Soon it became a game that everyone loves in China. Snooker regained its popularity through China.

Now the Expo is experiencing the same thing. China’s unparalleled charm and growing appeal brings a new life to this fair, a fair that has lost its importance.