The politics and the power of the World Expo

Show offers Shanghai redemption, Beijing kudos and visitors a market Although North Korea has confirmed its participation in the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, one can only speculate what the hermit kingdom might put on display to an audience of 70 million people. The country's famed ginseng tablets? A domestically produced Pyonghwa brand car? 'Presumably, China is giving them a free pass [to attend],' said Paul French, author of North Korea: The Paranoid Peninsula, A Modern History. The mainland's intentions for the expo are clearer: showcase Chinese culture and host an event befitting a rising power. In a single stroke, President and Communist Party general secretary Hu Jintao placed the expo on par with the 2008 Beijing Olympics and made it a political priority to 'ensure the success' of the events in a speech at the party's just-concluded 17th National Congress. Shanghai is eager to host the world fair to redeem itself after a corruption scandal that sullied its reputation. The expo is linked to the city's disgraced former party secretary Chen Liangyu , but Beijing has embraced the event because of its own political priorities. There is little concern that China will lose at least a billion yuan on the expo, which might be considered an expression of its 'soft power'. The government is offering financial assistance to developing countries to attend, isolating Taiwan and inviting diplomatic allies shunned by the rest of the world, such as Iran, Myanmar, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Taiwan will be invited to attend, but only as a province of China, required to display in the China National Exhibition Pavilion along with other provinces and not in the venue for Asian countries. 'We would like to invite all provinces, including Taiwan, to participate in the Chinese pavilion,' said Xu Bo , director of the international participants department of the Shanghai World Expo Co-ordination Bureau. The island's attendance is unlikely given this condition. Beijing has also reached out to the few countries that grant full diplomatic recognition to Taiwan to attend. At least three of them have confirmed: Guatemala, Haiti and Palau. For the participants - 174 confirmed as of the middle of this month - the event is a marketing tool to promote their countries and companies and an acknowledgement of China's growing power. 'China is the market in the next five to 10 years, so the expo is a ready-made platform, particularly if they ship 60 million Chinese in,' said an Asian government official involved in the expo. 'From a political point of view, you really have to be there because China is a rising power.' More than 70 million people are forecast to attend the six-month event from May to October, though only a fraction are expected to be from overseas. Fresh from hosting the Special Olympics, Shanghai is ramping up the expo effort. The hosting of the two events shares similar characteristics: mobilisation of an army of volunteers, mass crowd control and lack of details on the arrangements. There is little activity on the 6.4 sq km expo site, which straddles the Huangpu River that cuts through the city. Construction of the China pavilion, a more-than-50-metre-high circular building coloured a traditional red, is supposed to start before the end of the year. But evictions to make room for the expo remain a politically sensitive issue. Shanghai has moved more than 18,000 families. An NGO based in Geneva, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, estimated that 400,000 residents had been relocated for urban development related to the expo. Mayumi Otani, Shanghai correspondent for Japan's Mainichi newspaper, was assaulted by three unidentified men near the expo site after covering a demonstration in front of the expo headquarters in March. They pushed her, causing her to fall and injure a leg, she said. Organisers will unveil the expo mascots in December. Group ticket sales are scheduled to start next year and the event's theme song will be announced in 2009. The expo will have a test run from January 2010 and a rehearsal of the opening ceremony is set for April 1 that year. Moving out Estimates put the number of residents relocated for urban development related to the Shanghai Expo at 400,000 Source: Geneva-headquartered Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions