I. Expo Diplomacy: Definition and Achievements

1, The World Expo was born to bear on diplomacies, which comprise the ambitions of empires, aspirations of major powers and expectations of middle and small powers. According to the Convention Relating to International Exhibitions, the world expo must be hosted by government of state, because “All invitations to participate in an exhibition, whether they are addressed to member States or to non-member States, shall be sent through diplomatic channels by the Government of the organizing country to the Government of the country invited for that country and for the other parties in that country to be invited.

The replies shall be forwarded to the inviting Government by the same channel, as well as any requests by non-invited parties to participate… No Contracting Party may organise or sponsor participation in an international exhibition if the above-mentioned invitations have not been sent in accordance with the provisions of this Convention.”  Obviously, the world expo is by itself a large arena of diplomacy. Thanks to various reasons, the world expo had never seen omni-directional diplomacy in its real sense till the opening of Shanghai Expo. On the part of China, although China did keep in touch with the world expo since the very birthday of the World Expo, China had never engaged in diplomatic activities concerning expo until 1905 when Chinese government then had withdrawn the right of hosting the world expo. It was not until the 2010 Shanghai Expo that China has secured the platform to conduct spectacular and fruitful expo diplomacy.

Despite lack of consensus on the definition of expo diplomacy on the part of politicians and academics, China and abroad, so far, they generally place the priority on exhibiting national image and boosting interaction of the world. To this author, expo diplomacy is the sum of various diplomatic activities conducted around the world expo in general and, it refers to the diplomacy conducted via the platform of the Shanghai Expo at present in particular. The Chinese expo diplomacy mainly involves political diplomacy, economic and technologydiplomacy, public diplomacy and humanity diplomacy. Expo diplomacy mainly aims at: exhibiting China’s image of peace and development, boosting mutual understanding between China and the world, steping up the win-win developmental idea between China and the world, and sharing the fruits of the global civilizations. Beijing Olympic diplomacy and Shanghai Expo diplomacy are an important innovation of China’s diplomacy that provide China’s overall diplomacy with new connotations and models in the era of globalization.

Shanghai Expo diplomacy, taking advantage of a great international event, is an important innovation of China’s diplomacy and has its profound background of the times and conditions home and abroad. First of all, the Shanghai Expo diplomacy coincided with the reshuffling of the international powers in the new century. Given that the comprehensive national strength of China is growing continuously thanks to the success of its 30 years’ reform and opening, and the outstanding and positive role that China had played in the 2008 financial crisis, the Beijing Olympic Games and the Shanghai World Expo reflect a great change in the distribution of the international powers in a certain respect. Secondly, the Expo diplomacy is an adjustment and development of traditional diplomacy in the global era. The contemporary diplomacy is commonizing to find that actors are multiplying, the international rules are changing, the global issues are coming to the fore, and values are shifting, all that require the traditional diplomacy to keep pace with the times. On the one hand, diplomacy increasingly extends to include politics, economics, security culture, education and so on. On the other hand, diplomatic instruments are gradually changing, meaning that multi-national meetings, summit meetings, declaration diplomacy, parliamentary diplomacy, public diplomacy are increasingly moving to the front stage of diplomacy, which is evidenced by the Expo diplomacy featuring modern diplomacy, namely, broad issues, multiple actors, strong interactions, and so on. Finally, the Expo diplomacy is an important component of the development and innovation of China’s diplomacy. On the one hand, China has already developed the overall diplomacy of full-scale participating in diplomacy between governments, political parties, parliaments and civil societies. Local governments at all levels have embarked on flexible, pragmatic and effective works of local foreign affairs, which comply with the features and requirements of local development and on the premises of accommodating and carrying out the principle of overall diplomacy of the nation. On the other hand, along with the pluralization of diplomatic actors, comes the diversification of China’s diplomatic instruments. China not only can adroitly apply economic diplomacies, but also achieves great progress in political-party diplomacy, military diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, public diplomacy and so on.

2, Important Achievements of Expo Diplomacy

Political achievements. First, Chinese government actively embark on the head-of-state diplomacy and important governmental diplomacy through the platform of the Shanghai Expo. The worldwide multilateral diplomacies and bilateral diplomacies have enabled the 2010 Shanghai World Expo to become a global limelight. In addition to the opening ceremony of the Expo, the China pavilion day, and the closing ceremony, the national pavilion days and honor days for international organizations attended by foreign statesmen were going on almost each day of the half-a–year-long Shanghai Expo. Shanghai, like New York and Geneva, has become the center city of the international multilateral diplomacy in 2010. Secondly, the Shanghai Expo has provided an important arena for the promotion of the world harmony. The Chinese national leaders have strengthened communication with counterparts visiting the expo on bilateral and multilateral issues that has advanced mutual understanding, mutual trust and promoting the international status and influence of China. At the same time, the expo has provided an important platform for the governments around the world to make and brief their statements. There are more than a hundred heads of state and government that presented at various activities of the Expo, not to mention that leaders of Iran and Zimbabwe, both having difficult times internationally, visited the expo in person to recruit sympathy and support of the world opinions. Finally, the success of Shanghai Expo has fueled enthusiasm of many countries including the United States to hope to host expo and filled the Bureau of International Exhibitions and the World Expo with new dynamics. The size of the Bureau of International Exhibitions have grown from 89 to 156 members during the 8 years when China was bidding for and preparing the Expo.  With the support of the Bureau of International Exhibitions, Shanghai Expo is brave enough to make innovations in respect of the Urban Best Practices Area and Corporate Pavilions, which have added a sense of era to the Expo.

Important achievements of the Expo in economic and technology diplomacy. Firstly, the economic and technology diplomacy have become a major limelight and priority of the Shanghai Expo. As one of the various inter-governmental diplomacies in the Shanghai Expo, economic and technology officials are the mainstay of the government delegations to visit the Expo led by the heads of state and government and more often by ministers of economic, trade and tourism, when economic forums and trade negotiations, large and small, were held. Secondly, Shanghai Expo has provided China and international community with new dynamics and path for gearing up the world economic recovery. When Shanghai Expo, in its final run to the finish line of preparing for the expo, coincided with the world financial crisis, Chinese government, the host of the Expo, had initiated and exercised the concept of “pulling together to overcome the difficulties of our times” and countries across the world saw Shanghai Expo as an important chance to push for economic recovery and business cooperation. Russian President Medvedev personally decreeded to re-construct the Russian pavilion in hope of exhibiting more of Russia’s modern construction to attract more cooperation of Chinese enterprises.  Likely, Chinese ministries, provinces and enterprises drew upon the platform of the Expo for strengthening external connections, expanding channels of foreign trade and creating conditions for “overseas investment” and further consolidating and developing the foundation for China’s bilateral and multilateral cooperation with the world. Third, Shanghai Expo has renewed the developmental concept by upgrading the high-tech, low-carbon, urban planning to the height as responding to global issues and put them on the important agenda of international diplomacy. Shanghai Expo has fully mobilized the activisms of various actors, like states, sub-states, regions and enterprises. Pavilions, forums and activities put forward various advanced ideas and samples, and put forward strategies and measures in responding to environmental pollutions, resource shortage and economic disparity, which enabled the expo diplomacy to play an greater role in addressing the modern global issues. 

Major achievements of public diplomacy. Just as Mr. Zhao Qizheng, Member of the CPPCC Standing Committee, has put it, Shanghai Expo is a great arena of public diplomacy and a great amount of friendly exchanges between China and the world during the Expo is a vivid illustration of the public diplomacy, which deserves collection, summarization and dissemination.  First of all, Shanghai Expo provided governments of China and countries across the world with a broad arena to engage public diplomacy. Proper visitors of the Expo amount to over 70 million person-times, in addition to those relevant to the Shanghai Expo, such as the Expo staff, Expo web visitors, traditional and receivers of new media, and participants of the activities of other countries of the world, amount to 100 million. Secondly, exhibitors tried their best to display the “softness” and “mildness” of the Expo, dwelling various ideas and thoughts into the competition for beauty of economy, science and technology and education and representing the feature of public diplomacy in the era of peace and development. In as long as 184 days of Shanghai Expo, China persisted in watering down ideology, highlighting dialogue and communication, handling all kinds of sensitive incidents fast and prudently, making unique contribution to introducing the theme of Expo, building harmonious city and harmonious world on the part of China’s public diplomacy. Third, Shanghai expo has enriched the connotation of public diplomacies of China and the world. By contrast with the Western developed countries, China has engaged in the public diplomacy for a relatively shorter period of time, and with less experience. But China has seized opportunity of applying, preparing, hosting and visiting the Expo, paid attention to summarizing the practice and upgrading theory of public diplomacy and creatively underlining interaction between the government and people of China, making new contribution to the public diplomacies of China and the world.

Major achievements of cultural diplomacy. First, as the top international exposition of the world, the World Expo is an important opportunity for countries to promote cultural diplomacy. Cities from different countries and civilizations with various cultures converged in Shanghai Expo to have built up unforgettable diplomatic web of the world cultures, paths of diversification, and cultural integration. Second, Shanghai Expo stands for diversity, equality, and synergy, the spirit of the modern cultural diplomacy. Shanghai Expo has held over 200 thousand cultural activities, various interactions in and out of the park, and the items on display in the pavilions that incarnate diverse civilizations and cultural quintessence, which renders the cultural diplomacy of the Expo with new connotation in terms of transmitting ideas, promoting mutual understanding, learning from each other and co-prosperity. Third, Shanghai Expo highlights the normal, long-effective and unique role of the cultural diplomacy. During the Expo, culture is the important carrier of the exchanges and interactions of the exhibitors, which integrate various resources of Chinese cultural diplomacy, encourage cultural departments to participate in the overall diplomacy, step up institutional construction of the Chinese cultural diplomacy, and advance inter-government, inter-public and government-public relations within and between China and countries around the world. By the time of triumphant conclusion of Shanghai Expo and by reviewing the pre-Expo expectations, new impressions emerge: Shanghai Expo is the grand platform of diplomacy, the humanity pyramid, enabling those famous and nameless, extraordinary and common, science fictions and realistic, historic and futuristic, wild and tame around the world enjoy their integration, representation and rejuvenate in Shanghai. The humanity heritage of the world and global diplomatic significance displayed in the Expo will be far-reaching and unfathomable.

II. Explo Diplomacy: Practice and Experience

The year 2010 is the “Year of Explo Diplomcy” of China, another important international event following the Olympic diplomacy hosted by China in the year of 2008. The dual innovations both of China’s diplomacy and the world expo, China’s expo diplomacy is full of practical experience, which needs in-depth exploration and summarization.

2, Shanghai Expo has developed the epochal proposition of Expo diplomacy.

Expo diplomacy has become a proper noun of diplomacy with Chinese characteristics as well as an important innovation of the World Expo per se. The British Foreign Secretary David Miliband praised the notion of "Expo diplomacy" as "very clever, interesting".   Shanghai Expo has tangibly, vividly and vigorously performed the theme of the times: peace, development, cooperation and dialogues of plural civilizations; has highlighted the importance of “global thinking, urban actions, and cooperate governance” in the global diplomatic agenda and in responding to global issues; has lifted the strategic standing and sense of responsibility of the groups of developing countries in the transition and construction of international system; and has promoted the new developments of equalizing the international balance of power, multipolarization of international configuration and globalization of international interaction.

3, Shanghai Expo has fulfilled the goal of presenting China’s international image of peace and development.

Throughout the whole process of bidding, preparing and hosting of the Expo, China has constantly presented itself to the world as a country that highly emphasizes the modernization of the nation and modernization of the cities, calls for the concept of harmonious world and adherence to the firm conception of the road of peace and development, and concentrates the vigor of the whole nation and the wisdom of the world to ensure the success of Shanghai Expo. At the same time, exhibitors have been impressed by the presence of about 80 million Chinese visitors, staff and volunteers with the essence of national spirit of the Chinese people in their love of peace, fond of friendship, eagerness of development, and diligence of learning. Just as Mr. Vicente Loscertales, Secretary-General of the International Expositions Bureau (BIE) said in his speech delivered at the ceremony for the China National Pavilion Day, "China has been able to fully interpret and to put into practice the core values of education, innovation, cooperation which are the foundation on which an Expo develops its legacy. The overwhelming success of Shanghai Expo 2010 will inspire future hosts of World Expos.”

4, Shanghai Expo upgraded the comprehensive capability of China to host giant international events.

Shanghai Expo has demonstrated the successful experience of Chinese road and model to the world as well as the Chinese people, represented the systematical advantages to concentrate resources in managing large events, and heralded the advent of the day that China will host more and larger international activities in the future. Throughout Shanghai Expo, “Safe Expo” and “People comes first” have been insisted and so were the principles of consultation, contingency plan and propaganda to take beforehand, which provided China and the world with a reference of effective method, mechanism and measure in responding to salient issues of large international activities. Like the Beijing Olympic Games, Shanghai Expo has intensified national coherence and confidence, stepped up the open mind of cadres and masses, expanded the field of vision and ability of the people in international exchanges, promoted understanding of etiquette and norms of international exchanges, trained a team of complex foreign affairs, built up a more scientific and more efficient operational mechanism of foreign affairs, and intensified the national consciousness for China to host similar, super-large international activities.

5, Shanghai Expo has opened a new way of integrating foreign service at local levels into the overall national diplomacy.

In the process of applying, preparing and operating the Expo, Shanghai local authority of foreign affairs have closely collaborated with the overall diplomacy of the central government and consummately fulfilled major diplomatic activities assigned by the nation: many top officials of foreign states visited Shanghai neighborhood, over 2 million volunteers served in and out of the Expo park, platform was built for enterprise exchanges, promoted enterprises to implement the “walking out strategy(overseas investment)”, the resources of sister cities were enlarged to help the transition of local economic and social development, improved the administration of foreign propaganda, and fostered an propitious environment of external opinions. With the advent of the new century, China has hosted Shanghai Summit of APEC, Shanghai Summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Beijing Summit of China-Africa Cooperation Forum, Asia-Europe Summit in Beijing, Beijing Olympic Games, Shanghai World Expo, China “Summer Davos Summit”, Boao Forum, China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning, China-Arab Economic Forum in Ningxia, and Guangzhou Asian Games. Along with the increase of China’s hosting of large international activities, the central-local interaction mechanisms taking form in the Beijing Olympic Games and Shanghai Expo will render a role model with far-reaching and extending effect.

III. Conclusion

As the World Expo is characterized with a long period, a broad range of realms, diverse actors, and strong interactions, it gives a test of pressure to the ability of China in organizing large international activities, which provides similar activities in the future with a precious reference and experience.

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