Multimedia national treasure tests Expo run

"Along the River During Chingming Festival"
The highlight of China Pavilion during Shanghai World Expo, a multimedia version of "Along the River During Chingming Festival," was tested yesterday.


The original version, a top national treasure, was painted by the Song Dynasty artist Zhang Zeduan (1085-1145). It captures the daily life of people from the Song period at the capital, Bianjing, today's Kaifeng.


The figures in the multimedia version looked stunningly real and the water waves clear during the test.

Makoto Iokibe: Superpower responsibilities

Makoto Iokibe is President of the National Defense Academy of Japan. He also serves as a professor of political and diplomatic history at the Graduate School of Law at Kobe University.




Over millennia, China remained an unrivalled central empire in East Asia. The Chinese Empire maintained a splendid civilization peerless in this region and expanded its influence far and wide. The Roman Empire and the Chinese Han Empire in their heydays, and the Islamic Empire and the Chinese Tang Empire rising in the 7th century, all enjoyed advanced civilizations. The vessels in the fleet commanded by Zheng He in the Han Empire in the early 15th century crossed the Indian Ocean and were superior in design and performance to ships such as the Santa Maria, which Zheng’s contemporary Christopher Columbus sailed in his historic trans-Atlantic voyage. Of course, all interpretations of history are open to opinion.


After the Roman Empire collapsed because of the massive migration of Germanic people, the spiritual legacies of its civilization were inherited by the succeeding European world. In comparison, even after the Chinese Empire was conquered by other ethnic regimes, like the Yuan and the Qing dynasties, those ethnic groups were eventually assimilated into the Chinese civilization and subsequently became the driving forces that carried forward that civilization. The Han people have been the chief protagonists in the development of the Chinese civilization.


The Chinese civilization continued with the vicissitudes of dynasties and changes of regimes, repeating the 150-to-200-year historical cycle from one dynasty to another with insurrections in between.


A sudden change took place in this cycle in the 19th century. Although the decline of the Qing Empire was nothing unexpected in historical terms, it coincided with the invasion of East Asia by Western powers, led by Britain. Different from traditional civilizations that depended on manpower and horsepower, the Western civilizations that boomed after the Industrial Revolution were propelled by engines to extend their influences across continents and oceans. This industrialized civilization was the first that turned the earth into a smaller world. For non-Western societies, this ascendancy proved a tremendous challenge. Thanks to its promptness in understanding Western civilization, the island country of Japan soon modernized and rose to the same status as Western powers. By comparison, China took too long to appreciate the forces of change. That kept China plunged in turbulence for 140 years, beginning with the Opium War in 1840.


Since Deng Xiaoping’s initiation of the policy of“reform and opening-up,”China has made rapid progress. Thanks to its outstanding economic growth over the past 30 years, China has once again grown into a big central power in East Asia and indeed the world. Even the global economic crisis that started in 2008 failed to disrupt China’s progress. Instead, it gave China the opportunity to exhibit the great resilience of its economy.


Soon World Expo 2010 Shanghai China will begin. This is not only an exposition for the world to celebrate China’s great progress in the past 30 years but also an opportunity for China to show the world that it will rise to a superpower status equal to that of the United States by the middle of the 21st century.


What kind of superpower China becomes will not only affect its own future but also the destiny of global development this century. I sincerely hope this World Expo will send the message that however powerful it may grow, China will never run roughshod over any other country and will exhibit honorable conduct and high moral standards that foster global prosperity and happiness through economic and cultural exchange.

NZ foreign minister visits Expo site

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully visited the Expo site today.


The foreign minister checked the construction of the New Zealand Pavilion, which has a rooftop garden as a highlight. It covers 2,000 square meters of land and cost NZ$30 million (US$21 million).


Hu Jinjun, deputy director general of the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination, accompanied the foreign minister on the visit.


New Zealand Prime Minister John Key will visit Shanghai during the World Expo.

Expo forum held in Guizhou

The 26th Shanghai Expo Forum was held in Guizhou yesterday to promote World Expo 2010.


More than 300 people, including Miao minorities, attended the forum in the largest Miao minority village of Xijiang in the southwestern province. It was the last forum on the theme of interaction between urban and rural area before the Expo opens on May 1.


Colorful culture and folk activities were presented at the forum, including a traditional welcome ceremony at the gate of the village, folk singing and dancing and a long-table banquet.


Yesterday marks the 40-day countdown to the Expo. The first forum on the theme was held in last April in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province.

Greenland becomes Expo senior sponsor

Greenland Group signed a contract yesterday with the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination to be a senior sponsor of Expo 2010.


The group will offer fund support to the construction and operation of China Pavilion and Shanghai Pavilion.


The group has offered the largest amount of funding to sponsor the China Pavilion.


Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng, Executive Vice Mayor Yang Xiong and Publicity Minister of CPC Shanghai Committee Yang Zhenwu attended the ceremony.


Greenland is one of China's leading property corporations. The group had joined in Expo projects such as Expo site elevated walkway, the structure of buildings such as Pavilion of Urban Civilization and World Exposition Museum.


Greenland also won the bid for constructing the Italy Pavilion.


The group also took up renovation work in high rises and streets in Shanghai's Hongkou District during the 600-day countdown to Expo 2010, Wuzhong Rd and Guilin Rd Expo projects in Xuhui District and a bridge project related to Expo 2010.

Si-Chen Lee: Rediscovering ties to nature

Si-Chen Lee, born in 1952, is a professor of electronic engineering at National Taiwan University and was elected as the president of the university in 2005. He is also an expert in the field of micro-electronics engineering, qigong and parapsychology, and electro-optical engineering.

Expo tributes from 100 eminent voices



In human history, cities have drawn criticism as often as praise. Through the development of cities, mankind has freed itself from the restrictions of nature. At the same time, however, mankind has gradually lost its attachment to nature. It's ironic that the independence acquired from urban expansion has actually fettered our freedom. Facing this contradiction, we must therefore reorient urban life to achieve a balance between development and nature, between technology and humanity. We must cease allowing the vanity of urbanization to usurp nature, our fellow human beings and our core values. This is the paramount challenge of our generation.



The theme of World Expo 2010 Shanghai China–"Better City, Better Life"–exemplifies the mission we face. We must address the adverse effects of technology with better technology. We must save society by developing better concepts than those we call progress in the face of rampant development. We must re-establish harmonious ties with nature. None of these missions can be accomplished at one stroke. Instead, they require our acute awareness, our determined cooperation and our commitment to achieving success in our aims. The World Expo will duly provide us with a rare opportunity toward that goal.


As the host city for a milestone event with such an enlightening theme, Shanghai has shown its courage in addressing the challenges of future urban development and defining the global responsibilities of cities. It is my belief that through World Expo 2010, China will advance from the world factory of material production into an international cradle of civilization's promising future.

New Zealand Pavilion to show jade culture from two nations

Hei tiki, a carved jade piece from Otago Museum in New Zealand

New Zealand Pavilion will exhibit two jades, one from China and one from the South Pacific nation, during the 2010 Expo Shanghai China.


Hei tiki, a carved jade piece from Otago Museum in New Zealand, belonged to the family of a Maori clan chief. It is a miniature of a Maori man sitting with his head up, and it is 16cm high and 9.6cm wide.


Another jade piece on show will be a cong from Shanghai Museum dating back 5,000 years. It is square of 21.6cm tall and 7.3cm wide.


New Zealand has borrowed the Chinese jade to show a shared culture between the two nations.

Sand dunes in Shanghai

The pavilion of United Arab Emirates (UAE) finished its construction recently for 2010 Shanghai World Expo. The structure’s undulating form was inspired by the legendary sand dunes of the Empty Quarter in the UAE. The pavilion will be dismantled and rebuilt in the Middle Eastern nation when Expo ends.
A worker walks past the newly-completed UAE Pavilion for Shanghai World Expo.

Han meets delegation from Jiangsu's Changzhou

Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng yesterday thanked neighboring Jiangsu Province's Changzhou City for its support to Shanghai while meeting top Changzhou leaders.


World Expo 2010 is at a key stage from preparation to operation and all preparations are going smoothly, Han said while meeting Changzhou Party Secretary Fan Yanqing and Changzhou Mayor Wang Weicheng.


Shanghai has received great support for its eight years of Expo preparation from other provinces, especially cities in the Yangtze River Delta, which includes Changzhou, Han added.


As Yangtze Delta integration accelerates, cooperation and exchanges between Shanghai and Changzhou will be more frequent, Han said. Han also invite Changzhou residents to participate in and visit Expo 2010.


Fan said that residents in Changzhou are looking forward to the Expo 2010, which will soon open.


Changzhou will keep up its service and support to Expo and use the event as a stage to cooperate with Shanghai and showcase itself.

Tsung-Dao Lee:Exploring ‘dark’ mysteries

Our earth is not a big planet in the solar system, and the sun does not stand out from the rest of the 400 billion stars in the whole galaxy which also looks very tiny in the universe. However, thanks to our ancestors who created the Chinese civilization, this planet blessed with brown earth and blue water cherishes more distinctive features with greater intelligence and better human ethics than any other parts of the universe.


Although my tight schedule has restrained my knowledge about World Expo 2010 Shanghai China, I believe its greatest importance as a pageant of human civilization lies in its exposition of how the human race living on this planet has constantly moved forward in its exploration of the world and the universe.


World Expo 2010 Shanghai China will be the first comprehensive global exposition hosted by a developing country. For a developing nation like China, hosting this World Expo in 2010 is not only an effort to build a platform for cooperation between countries across the world but also a great opportunity to further strengthen its exchange with other nations. Through this opportunity, the Chinese nation will closely communicate with other cultures and learn from them.


The World Expo is a stage for exhibiting scientific and technological applications. Over the past 150 years, many new achievements in science, technology, ideology and culture have born a relationship with the World Expo.


It was through the World Expo that major inventions like automobiles, televisions, electric lamps and elevators made their debuts and started to gain popularity. As far as I know, this World Expo will showcase many original technological achievements made in Shanghai and in China as a whole, which have grown out of the efforts by generations of scientists in fundamental research.


How shall we Chinese keep coming up with new achievements in the decades after this event?


As I see it, China cannot afford to miss the 21st century in the field of fundamental research.


In the past, China missed the 17th century symbolized by classical mechanics, the 18th and 19th centuries represented by electro-magnetism, and the 20th century epitomized by quantum physics and the theory of relativity. Now, it cannot afford to miss the 21st century. The development of physics in the new century is closely correlated with ‘known substances,’ ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy.’


According to the research results we have achieved so far, the energy of the known substances consisting of such particles as electrons, protons and neutrons as well as a very small number of positrons and antiprotons only accounts for 5% of the total energy of the universe, with the remaining 95% coming from unknown substances, including approximately 22% from dark matter and 73% from dark energy.


We can realize the existence of dark matter from the effects of gravity, and discern the existence of dark energy from the acceleration of cosmic inflation.


To understand and investigate dark matter and dark energy pose the greatest challenges in modern physics. We Chinese must engage ourselves in these fields.


Some people may doubt China’s ability to lead the world in these fields. I would like to list two examples to clear their doubts. Nova and supernova, two very important concepts in astrophysics, were both first discovered by Chinese.


We discovered a nova back in the 13th century BC (during the Shang Dynasty), and a supernova in the Song Dynasty. To their surprise, the Chinese scientists of that time noticed a shining star in daytime, which looked ‘as big as an egg.’


They recorded its luminance every day for a whole year. These records are among the earliest astronomical observations in the world. Given the remarkable contributions by our ancestors, I strongly believe that modern Chinese scientists can also make outstanding achievements through persistent devotion and unfaltering patience.