The Shanghai World Expo is approaching; however, the United States, one of the world’s richest countries, has not yet decided to participate in it.
Domestic media has been vague about the reasons America is hesitant to attend the expo. It has been reported that due to the financial crisis situation, the American organizers and participants are worried about the expenses of attending the exhibition and the cost of building exhibition booths.
By the end of 2008, there were already 229 confirmed national and international organizations attending the exposition. Even without referring to the participants’ brochures, we know that more than half of these countries are not as wealthy as America. According to one estimate, the American exhibition booths cost about 65 million dollars to be built, but this is nothing for a country with a gross domestic product of 13 trillion dollars, a country whose president was able to spend 700 billion dollars to rescue the market.
Clearly, the lack of money is not the real reason America is not participating. It has been reported that the government in Shanghai sent a proposal to America last December saying that it is willing to provide an interest-free loan to American companies so they may complete the “technical work” of building booths. This is not really necessary, because as everyone knows, America has more money than China.
So why is the United States having financial problems building the exhibition booths?
First, it has something to do with the American system. The U.S. government needs the approval of Congress to spend money. Congress is not particularly interested in the expo, so it has authorized the State Council to be responsible for it, but refuses to grant any money. Helpless without federal funds, the State Council has to turn to private companies to raise 65 million dollars for construction costs. The message is clear: If you can find enough money, you may attend the exhibition; if not, then you will have to give up on it.
It is also a common practice in America for the government to stay out of money matters relating to charitable organizations, foundations and NGOs, even though they play a tremendous role in American society. Even during the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, the Preparatory Committee only got 1 million dollars from the government as start-up capital, and the Olympic Games were only carried out smoothly with the help of commercial capital.
The lack of enthusiasm in America has something to do with its national traditions. American has traditionally pursued isolationism and is only concerned with itself rather than the outside world. Even though things changed after the second world war, on the whole, Americans still believe devoutly that “all politics are local,” and the congressmen only care about things that affect their own district. Naturally they do not approve of allocating money for this exposition.
It is worth noting that some media have stated incorrectly that the U.S. has not decided to attend exposition due to financial difficulties. The Associated Press reported that if the United States is absent from the world expo, China will take it as a slap in the face. Experts in China also remarked that America is worried that the absence will hurt Sino-U.S. relations and will harm America’s commercial investment interests in China.
If you read the sentences above carefully, you’ll find something worth thinking about: America’s absence is not “slapping China in the face,” rather, the absence makes China feel as though it’s being slapped.
The connotation is important: Whether the United States attends the expo is not important to America; but it is particularly important to China. These different views will cause unnecessary conflict.
In fact, whether the United States attends exposition or not has little to do with the success of the expo.
Americans have not particularly keen to attend the expo in the past. When the Aichi World Expo was held in Japan, the United States Congress was not willing to support it. Finally, Douglas, the former chairman of the Toyota, stood up and raised the funds to build the exhibition booths. In 2000, 181 countries participated in the German Hannover World Exposition, but not America. Looking back to the year 1992, when the exposition was held in Spain to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the New World, a very special exhibition space was reserved for America, but the U.S. Congress refused to provide 24 million dollar fee. Finally, only a very simple exhibition booth was built, and it was made fun of by the others.
Whether the United States attends the exposition or not has little to do with China saving face or Sino-U.S. relations, but is related to its commercial interests. As the Atlantic Monthly put it, in 1964, the New York World Expo showed off the American technological advantage, and because of China’s economic boom, China will undoubtedly play a leading role in the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. If America is absent, how will people view America’s current international status? The Shanghai expo is more important than the expos in other countries, because it will be hosted in the biggest city in the country with the third largest economy. If America is absent, it will damage American interests in China.
This is a very insightful article by Mr. Chong Wang of the People’s Daily. It is one of the best press accounts, in the U.S. as well as in China. A few issues call for elaboration from an American point of view.
First, in the U.S., the Government does not build pavilions. In modern Expos, private producers build America’s pavilions. In the recent past, the Government provided the funding. But this time, as Mr. Chong relates, the U.S. Congress has not authorized the State Department to pay for a pavilion. In the case of the Shanghai Expo, the producers — not the US State Department (herein translated as the “State Council” — have been made responsible for raising private funding, an impossible condition they should never have accepted.
Second, while the deep reason for this probably has to do with America’s historical exclusionary tendencies, in this case there is a specific locus of responsibility: the George W. Bush Administration. In 2006, the Bush Administration developed a still secret Action Plan that apparently made it official policy not to ask Congress to fund the Shanghai Expo, even though the U.S. Government verbally agreed to attend the Expo. The policy may have roots in America’s 2005 Aichi Expo debacle, so well described in this article by Chong Wang.
Because in America, private producers create U.S.pavilions, there can be more than one contending for the privilege — and indeed there are. The BH&L Group to which I belong is one — a nonprofit association of world-class Expo veterans and China experts. We have fought hard for the past two years for the right to create the U.S. pavilion for precisely the reasons that Chong Wang provides in his article. We firmly believe that good US-China relations are key to the world’s economic recovery, fighting climate change, creating a sustainable urban ecology, promoting global security, and other essential goals.
The approach of the current team, which has reportedly alienated commercial interests in China and the U.S., has also produced political frustration in both countries. We have approached the U.S. Government with alternative pavilion plans that are more economic and more state-of-the-art than the current team’s. We hope for a resolution of the current impasse that will involve us and other Americans — among the grassroots as well among the experts — who share our passion for U.S.-China goodwill and for the very best U.S. presence at the Shanghai Expo. There are many: those who want to contribute expertise and those who want to give $10, $25, or $50 of very precious cash. All of us now must wait and see how the U.S. Government, under a new leadership, will treat our offers. There isn’t much time. The Shanghai Expo opens in less than a year.
We welcome a dialogue with Chinese counterparts, including the perceptive Mr. Wang, who also long for a different U.S. policy and solution. Readers of People’s Daily and Watch America can learn more by visiting our BH&L Group website and our BH&L Group Facebook Page. Thank you. See you in Shanghai!
Robert Jacobson, PhD
Core Team, BH&L Group
Santa Monica, California USA