By Jenna Rimasson
Passage au crible n°21
On 30th April 2010, the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, inaugurated the Shanghai world’s fair which will remain open until 31st October 2010. After the inauguration of the Olympic Games in August 2008, the eyes of the world are once again directed at the People’s Republic of China. Nearly 72,000 volunteers on the exhibition site and 100,000 more across the city will welcome the Chinese and foreign visitors during the event. With 182 countries and 57 international organizations represented, Shanghai has launched the most expensive world fair ever, with a budget of 4.2 billion dollars, or 50 billion if we take into consideration the expenditure on city development.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
With the Industrial Revolution in full swing, the first world’s fair was organized in London in 1851 with the objective of presenting technological innovations and the different participating states. In Paris on 22nd November 1928, 31 countries signed an agreement which created the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) to regulate the organization of these events. It was subsequently modified by various protocols and amendments, the latest of which was enacted in 1988. At present 157 states are signatories; these do not however include the United States. With its headquarters in Paris, the BIE is entrusted with promoting confidence and solidarity between the cultures of the world through two types of exhibition: international (specialized) exhibitions or recognized international exhibitions, and world’s fairs or registered international exhibitions.
Bringing together representatives of states, international organizations, as well as those of civil society, these exhibitions represent privileged showcases for their comparative advantages within the framework of peaceful competition. In the past, they have also highlighted colonial conquests before bearing witness to the Cold War, particularly in the 1958 Brussels world’s fair. Initially the participants were housed in a central construction. Nowadays they build their own pavilions and thus compete in the architectural domain – the Eiffel Tower in Paris (1900), the Atomium in Brussels (1958), the Space Needle in Seattle (1962), or the Biosphere in Montreal (1967) provide emblematic examples.
1. Structural power. Distinct from the relational power of the realist school, this concept, created by Susan Strange, refers to the capacity of certain actors to shape international policy. It includes structures of security, production, knowledge and finance. Here, only the last three are important. The participants provide visibility for certain of their national products which demand specialized knowledge and know-how – illustrating the Foucauldian principle according to which knowledge constitutes power – involving the mobilization of public and private funds.
2. Soft power. Far from being reduced to influence and persuasion, this concept characterizes a process of cultural and ideological attraction which distinguishes itself from traditional power of military and economic nature.
This world’s fair enables China to deploy all its magnificence. This is illustrated by the Chinese pavilion which dominates the entire exhibition park with its height of 49 metres, a height the Chinese prohibited other participants from exceeding. With this splendour and ostentation China exerts symbolic violence towards the other nations. After remaining at the margins of the world-system until the 1980s, then becoming just a workshop of the world economy, China is no longer content with undergoing globalization. On the contrary, from now on, it intends to be one of its principal movers. This ambition to reconfigure the world order is above all based on the diffusion of soft power, the force of the globalized projection of conquering Chinese influence. This shows the extent to which the performances organized by China during this exhibition are far from insignificant. This can be exemplified by the martial arts performances of Wudang and Shaolin which attract an international audience, especially after the worldwide success of the film, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The performances of the tea ceremony and those of puppet and shadow theatre – aimed at a younger audience – also belong to this double logic of affirmation and seduction.
The Chinese authorities systematically emphasize these cultural specificities in order to reinforce the cohesion with the Chinese diaspora and, more widely, with all Asian countries on behalf of which China intends to speak. In this respect, it should be remembered that the Shanghai world’s fair mascot, Haibo, has been drawn from the Chinese sign: (ren: Man), just as the logo for the Shanghai world’s fair has been drawn from the sign: (shi: world). While English is progressively replacing other languages as the Esperanto of commerce and diplomacy, the Chinese language, on the contrary, is envisaged as the privileged vector of a strategy of resistance or even of a linguistic and cultural counter-offensive.
In accordance with the BIE regulations which demand a specific theme for each world’s fair, the Chinese authorities have chosen “Better City, Better Life”. The aim is to turn China into an unavoidable actor in the dynamics of modernity (urbanization, sustainable development, international solidarity). In this respect, the economic aid granted by China to African countries to finance their participation confirms its ambition of future hegemony coinciding with the opening of the 20th World Economic Forum on Africa in Dar es-Salaam (Tanzania), an event aimed at “rethinking Africa’s growth strategy”. Moreover, the erection of the world’s tallest thermometer (165 m) within the exhibition park also bears witness to China’s proclaimed interest in environmental issues while the country now holds the world record – in absolute terms – for greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, confronted with international condemnations for violations of intellectual property rights, the Chinese authorities have chosen to use the Shanghais exhibition to launch a vast campaign against piracy and imitations.
Despite the record cost of the organizing the world’s fair which has been underlined by numerous observers, the potentialities for a return on the investment should be taken into account. It contributes to facilitating the negotiation or even the conclusion of major commercial contracts, especially with the twenty foreign heads of state present at the inauguration ceremony. In this vein, Nicolas Sarkozy, for example, secured the contract for providing a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant.
In spite of the current crisis in world finance, China, which on 25th April 2010 became the third shareholder in the World Bank, displays an insolent image of prosperity. By hosting an event based on technological innovations and serving economic growth, China demonstrates its capacity to further advance the decentring movement of the world economy.
Kita Julien, La Chine, nouvel acteur du système multilatéral, Minutes of the seminar: China: a New Player in the Multilateral System, 18th April 2008, IFRI, Paris, 18th July 2008.
Kurlantzick Joshua, Charm Offensive, How China’s Soft Power is Transforming the World, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2007.
Official website of the Bureau International des Expositions available at: http://www.bieparis.org/site/fr.html [5th May 2010]
Official website of the Expo 2010 Shanghai world’s fair, available at: http://fr.expo2010.cn/ [5th May 2010]
