Expo 2010 Shanghai is scheduled to begin on May 1, but the exhibition's Chinese hosts have recently opened it for a dress rehearsal, admitting guests in order to find out what to expect. And it seems reasonable to expect that this exhibition will become a milestone in the history of civilization.
This is not just because the exhibition gives China an opportunity to show everyone how rich and modern it is, which China has already demonstrated at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008. The Games cost China billions of dollars, and Beijing still does not know what to do with two of the biggest Olympic facilities - the Bird's Nest stadium and the Water Cube aquatic center. Although the effect was worth the cost, it makes no sense to do it all over again in Shanghai.
Nevertheless, Chinese leaders want to restore the importance of the Universal Expositions, which have been eclipsed by other events in the last few decades. They also want to revive the concept of the Universal Expositions, which have won fame not so much for the scale of the deals concluded at them but for their role as the intellectual engines of globalism.
At the end of Alexander Ostrovsky's play Without a Dowry, the brokenhearted heroine is invited to accompany a wealthy man to an exhibition in Paris, which is undoubtedly the 1889 World's Fair, for which the Eiffel Tower had been specially constructed that fall. The heroine famously chose a different fate. Had she gone, she would have seen the Eiffel Tower, and may even have avoided the villain's bullet.
There are few epithets with which Parisians did not curse the new tower back then. It was detested in those days, seen as an absurdity, although it was only Alexander Gustave Eiffel's answer to the British. The first Universal Exposition took place in London, then the capital of the world, in 1851. It was held in the Crystal Palace, a three-story building made of metal and glass, like some sort of enormous greenhouse. The palace was destroyed by the fire in 1936, but both structures came to symbolize the advent of a new century and a new lifestyle, and gave the Universal Exposition a reputation as the kind of space that could produce such novelties.
The Chinese are not simply trying to revive this reputation as the vanguard of novelty. They have already done this: Shanghai will host 192 countries (or every country in the world, a record in Universal Exposition history), pavilions will occupy an area of 5.28 square kilometers, and 70 million visitors are expected to attend the exhibition over the six months it is in session. The Chinese government has spent about four billion dollars on the exhibition itself, although some media outlets have taken into account all expenses connected with the fair, including the construction of a new terminal at Shanghai Airport, and quoted a figure of $58 billion.
Why does China need all this if it already captured the world's imagination in 2008? Perhaps, because it wants to show that we have entered a new world that is different from that of 2008. Following the previous global economic crisis in 1929, the world abruptly entered a new technological era. Civil aviation, radio and refrigeration all became a part of everyday life. Cars acquired a new look. Now, after the current downturn, it would be natural to expect a similar revival. This would be a real way out of the crisis - when it becomes clear what to invest in and where to go.
China has chosen its own motto for the Expo in Shanghai: "better city, better life." Almost all pavilions were built to demonstrate energy efficient and other modern technology, turning the city from an ecological nightmare to a part of the living, natural world around it. The British have rebuilt their Crystal Palace. They have made it out of 60,000 acrylic rods filled with plant seeds, if you can imagine. The Japanese have built something called the "purple silkworm," covered in an outer membrane that transforms the structure into a "breathing organism." The Chinese will try to win over their competitors and surprise everyone with their scarlet palace, the details of which remain a mystery until the start of the exhibition. Russia has also built an architectural masterpiece: imagine something like an ancient city made of white stone (and as high as a seven-story building) in the shape of, say, a crumpled white paper bag, with charming, delicate designs on the flat spaces. The interior is expected to showcase cutting-edge technology.
However, we live in the era when the list of important players on the world stage is changing dramatically. Judging by the first impressions of visitors during the test-run, it may also be necessary to give attention to the pavilions representing less obvious countries, for instance Spain and Thailand. And the fair can also showcase new lifestyles and even new rising international stars. Nepal, for one, simply wants to attract more tourists, and has happened to build a very impressive exposition for this purpose.
Coming back to China, it is no accident that it has recently run into conflict with competitors like Google. It is turning into a great information empire. The Chinese have designed a new type of internet portal for the Shanghai Expo, which incorporates 3D technology and several virtual walks from one pavilion to another. Nothing like this has ever been shown at a world expo before. The site will also open on May 1 (www.expo.cn).
Changes in world leadership have seldom taken place without wars, or at least this was the case before the era of economic interdependence. Needless to say, China is encountering resistance, primarily from the United States. The two countries are expected to sit down for talks in May to formalize the current balance between the first and the second world powers. Under the circumstances, its role as the host of Expo-2010, unique both in its scale and quality, guarantees China, if not massive support, then at least sympathy from the other countries at the fair, in other words almost the entire world. Because it is impossible not to respect the country that is behind the intellectual and technological breakthrough from the crisis to a new era.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev)
