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TOPIC: Hillary Clinton visits 'her' Shanghai Expo pavilion (BBC 5/22/10)

Jen the Michigander

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Date: May 23, 2010

Hillary Clinton visits 'her' Shanghai Expo pavilion (BBC 5/22/10)	Permalink

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10142881.stm Hillary Clinton has travelled to Shanghai to see for herself the results of her efforts to build up the American pavilion at the World Expo 2010. The US secretary of state personally helped raise money for the pavilion last year, pleading with US companies to donate the $61m (£42m) needed to build the structure and the exhibit. The construction of the pavilion was near death when the Obama administration came in, but Mrs Clinton came to the rescue. She said at the time it would send the wrong message to China if the US was not at the World Expo. The event is at the top of Beijing's political and business and agenda as it seeks to assert itself as a rising power. In an opinion piece published in the Global Times, a Chinese English language daily, Mrs Clinton also wrote that that "the relationship between the United States and China is critical to both our countries and to the future of our world". But before the serious talking about thorny issues like North Korea and Iran starts in earnest, she took some time to highlight the positive, and indirectly make a business pitch for American companies in China. Inside the American pavilion, a rather dull steel structure, visitors are treated to three short movies meant to showcase the "American spirit". The first one showed various Americans trying to speak Chinese, including famous basketball player Kobe Bryant. The second movie, about the creative power of children, featured representatives from various companies and felt like an ad for corporate America. It all concludes with a display of all the sponsors who poured the money into the pavilion and a souvenir shop where everything seemed to be "Made in China". Increasing exports to China is a key goal of the Obama administration to improve the US economy but, privately, some of the US officials in the delegation seemed a bit disappointed by the bold branding of the exhibit. The US pavilion has received a lot of negative coverage in the US press, particularly because of the corporate financing, which is unusual for national pavilions. But it appears to be a success in China and is one of the most visited at the fair, with 700,000 visitors since the opening just under a month ago. Just over 400,000 people have visited the Russian pavilion. It is expected the fair will receive 70 million people in total over six months. Mrs Clinton said it was not possible to be present at all the World Expos, but some were more important than others. The simple fact of being at the expo seemed to be enough of an achievement. "To have six or seven million young Chinese to file through our pavilion is an opportunity that we would otherwise never be able to achieve in public diplomacy, at least not traditional public diplomacy," the US ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, told the BBC. "And if that results in better relations, if it results in better attitudes to the United States and certain buying preferences, then you get a bit of public diplomacy and you get a bit of commercial diplomacy." __________________ Nobody puts THIS baby in the corner!

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