THE World Expo this year will be held in Milan, Italy, from May to October. Expo Milano 2015 will present the new technologies, new concepts and new achievements of over 150 participating countries and international organizations in the fields of food and the environment. More than 25 million visitors are expected to attend the Expo, among which more than one million will be from China.

China Pavilion 

The manager of Boscolo Milano Hotel hopes that the Milan Expo will bring more Chinese guests. In anticipation, the hotel team has created a Chinese website, put up signs in Chinese, and placed a welcome letter in Chinese in the rooms of all Chinese guests. During the Expo, a Michelin-starred chef will be in charge of Chinese cuisine, and congee will be served at breakfast.

 It is said that everything starts with the World Expo. Inaugurated over 160 years ago, World Expos showcase social, economic, cultural, and technological achievements, explore solutions for challenges we need to address, and look into the future of our society. World Expos have witnessed the debuts of numerous advanced technologies, such as the steam engine, the telephone, the elevator, the television, the automobile, and the aircraft, to name a few. It was at the World’s Fair in Paris that the Blue Danube, by Austrian composer Johann Strauss Jnr, achieved its resounding success.

 As this year’s theme is “feeding the planet, energy for life,” the Milan Expo calls for harmonious and balanced development between man and nature. It also presents opportunities to explore effective approaches to providing sufficient, quality and healthy food in a sustainable way, to use natural resources properly, to protect the environment, to nourish humanity, and to nurture the planet Earth.

This will be the first time China participates in a World Expo abroad in a self-built pavilion. With a total area of 4,590 square meters, the China Pavilion will be the second largest national pavilion at the event after Germany.

Showcase of the Essence

of Chinese Culture

The theme of the China Pavilion is “land of hope, food for life.”

 China was among the first countries to develop agriculture in human history. As one of the cultivating grounds of the world’s crops, China boasts a splendid agricultural civilization with an 8,000-year-long history. Here, agriculture is deeply influenced by the ancient philosophy that “man is an integral part of nature.” This is not only a core value of the Chinese nation, but also resonates with the trend of sustainable development in today’s world.

 The exhibition at the China Pavilion unfolds around a general introduction and four sections that illustrate heaven, man, the land, and harmony between them.

 The waiting area seats the general introduction. As people line up to enter the main exhibition hall, they will be presented with films about China’s agricultural civilization and food culture, and the concept on which the China Pavilion is designed.

 The first section is a display of the gifts from nature. The exhibition illustrates crop processes and different climates according to China’s 24 solar terms, an agricultural calendar used by the Chinese. Chinese people have always respected and been in awe of nature. The 24 solar terms were created by ancient laborers to reflect the changes in the weather, the climate and other natural phenomena. This special calendar reflects Chinese people’s wisdom in developing agriculture according to the laws of nature and offers a simple and effective way for farmers to understand nature and live by its rules.

The second section charts the progress of science implemented in food production and other aspects of agriculture. The exhibition tells the stories of important figures and milestone events that have made their mark in the history of China’s agricultural civilization. With the help of holographic projections that bring those stories to life, visitors will gain insights into how Chinese people have contributed to the development of agriculture as a whole. Meanwhile, this chapter also offers a quick look into how China itself has made progress in agriculture: from rice farming and silkworm breeding in ancient times to modern eco-agriculture; from intensive agriculture that strictly followed laws of nature to the hybrid rice technology pioneered by Professor Yuan Longping in the 1960s; from the ancient land ownership system that allocated land according to status to contemporary policies that benefit all farmers. It also shows the production process of making tea from tea leaves, making tofu from soy beans and the famous eight schools of Chinese cuisine.

The third section presents the landscape of China. The exhibition space is designed as a vast field with an undulating roof, which is derived by merging the profile of a city skyline on the building’s north side with the profile of a mountainous landscape on the southern side, expressing the idea that “hope” can be realized when nature and the city exist in harmony. The trail through the field leads visitors to the second floor where an open field of wheat unfolds on a huge LED screen. In this segment visitors will be given a closer look at the diverse landscapes that nature has endowed on China.

The last part of the exhibition is an audio-visual room that shows a mini-movie around the theme of “harmony.” When Chinese people develop agriculture to grow food to feed themselves, they do so in constant pursuit of harmony and balance with nature, and continuously explore approaches to sustainable growth. The philosophy of “harmony” dates back to ancient China when Confucius in 500 BC advocated that “harmony is most precious.” Over the following centuries the idea of harmony has been gradually enriched to include not only harmony between people, but also between man and nature. Heaven, man, the earth and harmony, the four themes of the China Pavilion, are truly the essence of Chinese culture.

The idea behind the China Pavilion mascot also originates in the idea of “harmony.” The Chinese character for harmony, 和 (hé), comprises two parts, 禾 (grain) and口 (mouth), which stands for food and people, respectively. The design of the mascot is inspired by the image of a chubby doll, a traditional Chinese clay figurine, in the shape of the character 口. The mascot, called He He, holds in its right hand a stalk of rice, which symbolizes harvest.

As is common practice, most of the pavilions are temporary structures and will be removed after the Expo. “We hope we can take this beautiful architecture back to our campus,” said Xie Weihe, vice president of Tsinghua University, whose team designed the China Pavilion.

China Oriental Performing Arts Group, which gave two beautiful music and dance performances at the Shanghai Expo, will put on another show in Milan. The show, named Steps of China, integrates singing, dancing and instrumental performance to showcase various music and dancing styles of China’s ethnic groups through eight chapters.

During the Milan Expo, 17 provinces and cities in China and 10 companies will be hosting different themed activities, the length of which will vary from one day to one week. There will also be forums on agriculture, food, and tourism between China and Italy.

A platform for Cooperation between China and Italy

China’s participation in the Milan Expo has attracted great attention from the governments of both China and Italy. During their meeting in June 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi reached consensus that both countries would leverage the Milan Expo as an opportunity to enhance cooperation between the two countries. They also proposed a three-year action plan that highlights collaboration in agriculture, food, environmental protection and aerospace between the two countries.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Italy. Now, Italy is China’s fifth largest trade partner in the European Union and China is Italy’s largest in Asia. In 2014, bilateral trade reached US $48 billion. “The Milan Expo is a significant opportunity for us to expand bilateral trade and enhance cooperation,” said Wang Jinzhen, chief government representative of the China Pavilion at the Expo, chief representative of the Bureau of International Expositions in China, and vice chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

Besides the China Pavilion, China’s business community is also actively involved in the Milan Expo with the China Corporate United Pavilion. Vanke, China’s market-leader in residential real-estate development, will have its own corporate pavilion. The participating businesses are the best examples of China’s achievements in the transformation of its growth model and the development of science and technology.

“To align with the Expo’s theme of feeding the planet, energy for life, these companies are truly the embodiment of our constant pursuit to give back to nature and change our lifestyles. They have also delivered some of our latest progress,” said Chen Anjie, director of the Executive Committee of the China Corporate United Pavilion. Companies in the Pavilion include ones that “soar up to the sky,” such as China Aerospace Science & Technology Corporation and the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China; ones that “drill into the ground,” such as CSR Corporation Limited, Baosteel and Shanghai Electric; and ones that travel the depths and breadths of the ocean, such as the China Shipping Group, MSP/DRILEX and Rainbow Fish Ocean Technology. There are also companies that are deeply involved in people’s daily lives, such as Shanghai Tex of the textile industry, Bright Food, Shimao Group, a property developer, Wuliangye, a liquor maker, and Tasly, a pharmaceutical company.

Italy is a developed Western country with a long history. It is strong in the field of design, fashion and arts. Many Chinese companies are looking forward to cooperate with their Italian counterparts in these areas.

“Because of the changes in the global situation and circumstances of family-run businesses, some Italian brands with a history of more than 100 or 200 years are facing crisis, which gives Chinese companies with international ambition a chance of cooperation. If the cooperation succeeds, it will breathe new life into the age-old companies and give Chinese enterprises opportunities to grow in the international arena,” said Wang Jinzhen. “Besides, Italy is advanced in the field of automobile manufacture and aviation design with a mature industrial chain, which is another field in which Chinese companies would like to cooperate with Italian companies.”

The construction of the China Pavilion is also an example of successful cooperation between China and Italy. The pavilion was designed by Tsinghua University in Beijing, and construction was carried out by a group of Chinese and Italian companies.

Through popularizing new products and new technologies, the World Expo pushes the world’s economic development. By advocating new concepts and new mindset, it stimulates people to think anew. The Expo helps people all over the world to enhance mutual understanding, to build friendships and to conduct dynamic cooperation in multiple fields.