2009-07-17
On July 17th, Yue-Sai attended the Groundbreaking Ceremony of the US Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo Shanghai.
The Shanghai Expo, which runs from May 1 to October 31, 2010 is set to be the largest ever with an anticipated 70 million visitors.
So far the Expo has commitments from a record 240 countries and international organizations. The US is the 32nd nation sending working teams to the expo garden, among a list of 40 nations committed to build stand-alone pavilions.
Below is a blog entry Yue-Sai wrote about the ceremony:
"Friday July 17 was a very important day for China/United States relations. After struggling for a couple of years with not much progress for setting up the US PAVILION in the World Expo, Mrs. Hillary Clinton who is now the Secretary of State of the United States finally got into the act. She first appointed a Commissioner General called Jose Vallareal who ran her campaign for Presidency and is very close to the Clintons. Within 2 weeks, Mr. Vallareal's new team raised 30 million US dollars. Big American companies came into the act. Pepsi-cola, Intel, Walmart etc. We will need 60 million dollars to make the event. So more fund raising has to continue. You may wonder why USA has such a problem raising the money? Well, under US Constitution, the government is NOT allowed to give any money to such pavilion. The money has to come from the private sector. Thus US citizens and also US corporations. This year, US corporations are not doing so well. So money is harder to come by. But I think money should not be a problem any more now that Hillary Clinton is involved. The ground breaking ceremony was attended by both the US and Chinese officials, including the US secretary of Commerce, Chinese American Gary Locke who is on a visit to Shanghai. The most blistering heat does not hurt the excitement in the air. In the evening, I gave a dinner in my home for everyone that has been involved with the Pavilion. I even invited Mr. Xu Bo, the Assistant Director of the World Expo, a very distinguished diplomat and a good friend. Everyone pledged to make this the best Pavilion he and she can help to make. Let us see."
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