Markus Heinrich is a German businessman specializing in imports and exports. Heinrich travels to China regularly, and considered the Expo as a useful business prospect. According to Heinrich, “The Expo is an elaborate meet-and-greet. For countries, it is simply a means to promote their goods and services to the Chinese market and for business people it is a good way to network.”
With a 192 countries represented across a five square kilometer site, one thing the Expo is definitely not short of is networking op-portunities. Certainly, wandering throughout this town-sized emporium, the immediate impression is one of a glorified trade fair, albeit one with over-zealous attendees. Each country’s pavilion is an exercise in national branding, a carefully devised means of pro-moting key government objectives. Unfortunately, no pavilion staff members were willing to talk about this on the record.
However, such a view appeared to be corroborated by comments made in a recent article in the Guardian newspaper by British politician Liam Byrne. As former chief secretary to the UK Treasury, Byrne is well placed to pass judgment on the true role of the Expo. According to Byrne, the British “dandelion-shaped” pavilion has helped to triple the number of British-led investment deals currently under discussion in China. Something that Byrne suggests represents a good return on the “25 million quid” (slang for English pounds) the UK spent on the pavilion.
Behind the Gloss
Of course, some nations at the Expo, 22 of which currently have no diplomatic relations with China, are by no means in a position to lavish exorbitant amounts on international PR campaigns. In the Pacific Islands Pavilion, a large hall containing the regions many micro-nations, exhibitions were kept to a minimum. Many of the national stands were not staffed at all, while those that were, were overseen by lone representatives. This is pro-portional to the size of the country, but even at this reduced scale, the motivation behind a nation’s presence remained largely the same. Among the representatives we spoke to, all listed their key objective as selling their island as a holiday or trade destination to the Chinese.
Dan O’Conner, an Irish national, who has been working at the Expo on behalf of a number of different countries as a freelance photographer, agreed that the Expo was a “weird mix of tourist brochures, and global trade pitches,” but also placed a great deal of emphasis on the impact it had on the (predominantly) Chinese crowds. “Sure, it’s thinly disguised national propaganda, Germany’s great at building cars, Britain is very creative, Iran is all powerful, but the real story is the huge number of visitors, and what they’re getting from it.”
It is these very crowds, however, that have turned most foreigners away, or left them feeling harassed and disgruntled. Michael Levy, an American tourist, who decided to visit the Expo for a day during a recent holiday to China, echoed the sentiments of several foreign nationals we spoke to. “The endless lines to get into the pavilions are just exasperating, and there’s nothing in any of the pavilions that we didn’t know already, nothing new, nothing exciting, just these childlike national caricatures.”
But perhaps that’s just the point, to a foreigner, the Expo can seem a pointless exercise in bombast, while to many of its domestic visitors, it remains an interesting window onto the world, a singular event, unlike anything else they have or are likely to experience again. It is part imaginary, part real, but, to its scores of enthusiastic visitors, undeniably authentic. As Seppe Van Grieken explained, “The Expo is not about the World, it’s about China, and China’s place within it.” Looking out over the giant red lattice that makes up the roof of the China pavilion and dominates the Expo skyline, you can’t help but agree. The world has come to China, and some people had better get used to waiting in line.
October 2010
