Wikileaks - From 2010: HRC Shanghai Expo
Part 1
In recent weeks I've written extensively about the nearly $100-million
debacle that the US Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo has become. So
much false propaganda has been flooding cyberspace, most of it produced
by an enormous PR effort but much of it also emanating from the State
Department, it's all I can do to stay abreast of the sickening-sweet
self-congratulations and continuing attempts to rewrite the history of
the pavilion. The real story, however, is the stuff of a best-selling
political expose.
2010-05-29-20100520USPavilionShanghaiExpo.jpg
To briefly recap, the Bush Administration in 2006 decided not to support
the project but muffed private fundraising for the next three years,
leaving it to Hillary Clinton in the 11th hour to horse trade with
60-plus American and Chinese multinational CEOs, Friends of Hillary (and Bill). Even before the pavilion organizers had applied for or received
their tax exempt status, the corporations anted up the dough, sure of their contributions' deductibility. In doing so, however, they commercialized the US Pavilion, turning it into a six-month-long
infomercial that has been dubbed "the shopping mall."
The American people – you and me, the citizens whose taxpayers will
have to make up for the largely deductible corporate contributions –
show up as fleeting images on one two-minute film. Two other short films
promote Obama and Clinton and tell a fairytale story about urban
gardening in a future American city (in which, no doubt, food has become
too expensive to buy, a trend already in the making). The rest of the US
Pavilion is dedicated to multinational promotion, loads of it.
The mainstream press, which in the past published only puff pieces in praise of Hillary and her "heroic save" of the US Pavilion a feat that could have been accomplished more easily and quickly simply by asking a ready Congress for the money finally got the message when Hillary visited the US Pavilion on her current Chinese tour and came
away startled by the Moloch she had wrought. The New York Times,
Washington Post, and Foreign Policy reported on Clinton's double-take:
"Clinton Sees U.S. Pavilion at China Expo," Mark Landler, May 22, 2010
"The United Corporations of America," Ezra Klein, Washington Post, May
24, 2010
"Clinton visits world's fair in Shanghai, not as impressed with U.S.
Pavilion," Preeti Aroon, May 24, 2010
So now that the story's now been told (up to a point) and various parties' formal complaints have been filed with the State Department, the IRS, and Congress, I'm turning my attention to a larger, contextual issue: the ongoing attempts to privatize public diplomacy for which the US Pavilion is clearly a test case.
Public diplomacy is America's main alternative to war as a way to speak
our minds in a turbulent but listening world. Modern war is mostly
ineffectual but costly in both treasure and lives. We need powerful public diplomacy to do the job that war cannot do at a fraction of war's price. If public diplomacy is compromised for private financial or political gain, however, it ceases to have credibility and force. We're left with only war to make our case. It could bankrupt our nation.
Privatizing American public diplomacy was the Bush Administration's
policy. Regrettably, the Obama Administration, rather than repealing
this policy, has instead accelerated its application.
However, there's one last pavilion story to tell that says it all about how little the hugely expensive US Pavilion has done to better America's reputation in Shanghai and China generally.
https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/16/1642501_re-ct-us-pavilion-in-shanghai-fails-to-do-its-job-san.html
(Part 2 posted below)