The Main Talk · 惊言堂: The Main Talk

The Main Talk interviewed Simon Heale, Chief Executive of China Now

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 08:24:24 GMT

Hello, welcome to the MainTalk, I'm your host Qin Yi.

The Chinese lunar New Year--the year of mouse is coming. Coinciding with the start of Spring Festival, the UK will host a great event --"CHINA NOW" to showcase the contemporary China, which may be Europe's biggest-ever celebration of modern China.

On February 7th, the first day of the Chinese Spring Festival, London will hold a lantern lighting ceremony. It's part of their "CHINA NOW" series, which is the largest ever Chinese cultural festival to take place in the UK. Starting with the Chinese New Year celebrations, the festival includes 6 months worth of nationwide exhibitions, performances and activities.

A lot of preparation is on the way on the part of both Britain and China. On January 17th, the sound of drums heralded CHINA NOW's official unveiling in China. Between the Chinese New Year and the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in August this year, CHINA NOW is highly welcomed by both British and Chinese guests.

We've seen over the last couple years, huge opportunities for China now. We see more and more cultural manifestations from China as well, so people will get a chance also to see things they haven't before, like shaolin monks, or the national ballet of China, which has a great international reputation.

As far as my colleagues are concerned, many of them have been to China. They understand China on the superficial bases, but definitely, they don't have any understanding in terms of China's culture, because it takes a long time to understand it.

What are the highlights of the festival? How can "CHINA NOW" strengthen the understanding between China and the UK?

To talk about these issues, we are joined this week by Simon Heale, Chief Executive of China Now.

Simon Heale is Chief Executive of China Now.

He was educated at Winchester College and Oriel College, Oxford. In 1979, he joined the Swire Group in Hong Kong and spent the following 18 years with there. During that time, he acted as Director and Chief Operating Officer of Dragonair and Deputy Managing Director of Cathay Pacific Airways. In 1997 Mr. Heale was appointed Group Finance Director at Jardine Fleming Limited in Hong Kong and in 1999 he was appointed Chief Operating Officer. He moved back to London in July 2001, and became Chief Executive of the London Metal Exchange until October 2006.

Mr Hill , welcome to the main talk.

Thank you very much.

Tell us about the china now , what kind of the festival is it ?

It’s the festival that started a couple of weeks in Chinese New Year and runs until the end of July. or effectively the start of the Olympic games. And it’s across the UK, it’s everywhere in the country, and at the moment we have about 800 the events in total. All major cities are involved. Where there is Edinburgh, London, Manchester, and Birmingham, Liverpool and so on.

Do you have any idea or estimation that how many people will participate in it ?

We really have extraordinary interest in London in the First Emperor exhibition in British Museum which is breaking all records. So over half million people will be, 500000 people have been to that. So I think we will count millions in the end.

What kind of events will be included.

We will try to do is a mixture of everything because we want to cover all of modern China, so its arts, culture , music, literature, education, business, sport and so on. So most of aspects we have found or discovered what people have expressed their interest in we hope all be covered.

Give us a specific, just tell us one of the , some of these events, very interesting.

If you took part in the major ones, as the first emperor in the British Museum, which is the first time that kind of terracotta warriors got out of China. We have major exhibition of Victoria Albert called China design now, which focuses on the explosion of modern art design now in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing.

It’s an exhibition of things designed by Chinese artist?

Its things, its videos, its architect, it is introducing people to the range of vitality of designs in China. We have dance in royal opera, we have Chinese opera saddlers as well, we have exhibitions, museum and we have literature including, I think the publication of book by Jiang Rong called Wolf Totem.

As the name suggest, China now will focus on contemporary China, so how can you emphasize China Now present, how can you do that?

What we try to do is to expose people in the UK to the range of China. Frankly, a lot of people think of China, as working very hard, producing goods for the rest of the world, and still think big mysteries, big distant. the massage we want to get across is China is not what people traditionally think of it. And you’ve got to engage with China, not just in business terms, but also in culture terms, education terms. What we doing is talking about China as it is today, and that’s why I’m emphasizing modern art there are a lot of Chinese art which is becoming world-famous as we know.

You are going to invited a lot of performers and artists from China, to participant in this events, so how do you make that decision, I mean how do you choose what performers or what artists, what designer to invite because you have to reflect contemporary Chinese society, right?

To perfect all these we relied on the experts who work in the theaters who deal with the museum with the art galleries because they are the ones who cares. If you are going to ask who create the whole festival, the answer is we didn’t create the festival as whole. The individual sections are created by experts in that field.

But obviously you can’t avoid to show cases of these, you know, traditional Chinese heritages either, right? Since you mention heritage, things like terracotta warriors and others like Beijing opera, they can’t be avoided.

Those things are in the festival as well. Because certainly something I believe you can’t understand a present day without putting it in the historical context, and terracotta warriors and Chinese new year’s celebration, lantern things, even Chinese food in England is, trust me, is not as good as Chinese food here. Although we have some people who are familiar with, but it is border than that taking that as base and moving forward.

Apart from those exhibitions, performances, are you goanna have some seminars to teach people about contemporary Chinese society and things like that?

There are numbers of seminars; there will be held business seminars in a number of places. We have got conferences on sustainability, on the environment, on urbanization, and we want to choose close conferences where people will be discussing subjects and we getting high-level participants there to engage in the field relationships.

You’ve specifically called on the engagement of Chinese community in the UK to engage in the activity, and you said that Chinese community should seize every opportunity to become world visibly in all areas, what did you mean by that?

There is big Chinese community across the UK. is economically very successful, academically high achieving, but relatively low profile, here you have I think opportunity with China Now for these communities to take part in of it, because what I am always talking to them is China Now as an umbrella which is there for them to take advantage of.

How could "CHINA NOW" be run more effectively, in order to make a bigger impact?

Since September 2007, the biggest exhibition of China's famed terracotta warriors at the British Museum has drawn a huge crowd.

I think the experience here seeing the warriors is quite different from that in China. Here you can look them face to face,look them in the eye,see how tall they are, see the details of them. Each one is different.

The exhibition helps the British people learn about China, and the year of 2008 may enhance their understanding of the country. Now that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has paid his first official visit to China, it's time for "CHINA NOW" to launch in the UK - in the year of the Beijing Olympics. The festival was conceived almost 2 years ago by a group of British businessmen and organized by an independently funded, non-profit institution. Both the Chinese and UK business communities, as well as their governments, sponsor the event.

China Now is initiated by a group of private business leaders of entrepreneurs and what is the motivation here?

I think people who got it going which include Parker the chairman of Brrunswick, Steven green, the chairman of HSBC. What’s They felt there was a gap here and this could filled by festival like this, so they are ones who got it going, brought me in and say right and take this vision and turn it into reality. What I am providing is the organizational discipline, direction and control. The sponsors are providing the money and money flows to China Now, to the cultural organizations and educational institutions, for them to spend.

If you go out on the street in the UK, in London or in anywhere else in the UK, and just ask some one, “What do you know about China? What’s your impression on China? What do you think of China?” what will they say usually? Is a Chinese food or monkey king or what is it?

H: HSBC carry out a survey recently, which they did it both in the UK and China, and what was interesting of the Chinese sample who were interviewed 46% knew the prime minister of UK was either Tony Blare or Gorden Brown, with other names are informed. 7% of the British respondents knew Hu Jingtao. what is much more worrying for me 7% of the British respondents think Mao Zedong is still running China. Now that is an example where they are out of date; they are lack of information.

But lack of information, you see China in the newspaper everyday, you see news, stories about China, so what do you mean lack of information?

You know about China primarily in the economic context, you know about China in terms of the expanding growth and potential as it perceive for climate change issues coming out of that with a lot of more power stations. You tend not to have articles about monkey king, you tend not to have articles about modern dance or 798 in Beijing. I think there is a lot of coverage of China, but it tends to be on the certain roads we fix the lines. And that’s why I think China Now is about diversify that knowledge.

Your goal is really to provide a comprehensive understanding of the Chinese culture Chinese society right? So who are the people that you want to impact and influence the most through these events?

I think the area really matters to me the most of all is the education side because I think when you talk to primary school children, secondary school children and university students, you are engaging in the next generation. We’ve got grants the schools could apply for. For Chinese culture day and either the Chinese theater group or opera group come and they will have a culture exposure. So the children will see the opera or Chinese theatre in the flesh. We’ve got a competition, hundred-word plays; the idea is the school will write hundred-word plays. The origin of this is, I believe, collecting from the Beijing taxi drivers, who expected to learn a hundred words of English, so it kind gives you the interesting challenge within that constraint to construct a story. Will be want school children do it in English, if they can do it in mandarin the same story, they will be filmed and the best one we would be prized. And the last thing which of me I believe very passionate here is through the British council, we want to twin the schools in England and schools in China, and I love this idea, if it works, of school children, the old forms of pen power they used to be when I was a child, you know can they communicate by internet, can they send emails, can they share each other first Chinese characters or their first English poem, and that I think will be very powerful.

Last year, there were 75000 Chinese students study in the UK, and in fact your prime minister Golden Brown during his visit in China, he has announce plans to expand the communications and exchanges in students and especially graduated school students between the two countries. So this fits your program, right?

It absolutely do right. I think that engagement of students, and one of things I would like, in return, maybe for the Chinese students, when they tends to here and when they come to England, they working incredibly hard, they are very focus on their studies, and they do very well, and I will encourage them to, also, take a little bit time off and engage more, maybe teach in local schools, become ambassadors for their country.

China Now coincides with the 2 month China in London events hosted or organized by London mayor’s office. And just in recently years, we have a lot of China culture year in various countries like in Russia in UK and etc. so how can China Now make a difference, how can it be , you know, complementary to these government effort to promote more culture exchanges between the two counties?

“China in London” which is now in its fifth year, has been huge successful. And the mayor of London is a great fan of China, and greatly involved. And that’s often given us an element which is already there. I think we are doing for longer, with more events and wider geographic ranges. I think that’s our big distinguish factor.

A lot of people got there and enjoyed events and enjoyed performances, loved the food but it ends there, nothing is really learned about China afterwards, how do we avoid that? How effective are these events actually?

China Now is not over 6 month going to sought out all the problems, it is not to make everybody a China expert, so I think it is a gradual process which is why the education side matters so much. It takes time, it’s not a one hit solution. So every person has a Chinese meal and maybe when he has suddenly discovered Confucius did live in China or there is a Chinese delegation visiting the UK next month or there is ballet done in China. and over time, they will be effective.

I know business opportunity is the goal of such events but as the side of it, could also bring business opportunities, for example, I have a figure here the 2007 China year in Russia brought 21business deals and that’s the total of $4 billion dollars.

when we talk about the sponsorship, it wasn’t about the meet to return, returns in investment, amount of sells, it was about an investment in a longer-terming engagement and I have to say my sponsors and in that I will include the Chinese companies, it was very gratifying to get Chinese companies like Ping’an, Jili and bank of communications, lenovo, CICC, so they will come, all involved with us, supporting us engaged.

How was the feedback from Chinese business community because you know CSR cooperate and social responsibility it’s a big thing in the western world, but it just start picking up in China.

It was a harder sell than in the western in Hong Kong both of which were very emergent very supportive. I think the biggest selling point to mainland companies is that we were promoting China as a whole, their homeland abroad. It was like telling the world about China, about the changes, about what is happening, so for them, I think it was something of interest. Because they take pride quite rightly in their country and the opportunity promote that. I mean said that some of them did say why would I give you money to do that but I can spend it myself. So I would say I can do very effectively for them. But some of them are not yet persuaded, but I’ll make a prediction for you, I think I’ll do this again in 4 years time, it will be much easier to engage Chinese companies.

After years of working in international finance, how does Simon Heale lead "CHINA NOW"?

Simon Heale is a leading figure in international finance and a qualified chartered accountant. He is the former chief executive of the London Metal Exchange, which is the largest base metals futures exchange in the world.

Mr. Heale left the Exchange in 2006 and since then has been dedicated to leading "China Now". Having lived in Asia for 22 years and having visited China several times, Simon shows great interest in promoting "China Now".

Why? Because China matters. It's one of the largest countries in the world with the largest population. But I think one of the reasons is the extraordinary range of change and diversity of China.

Why did you resign from the LME CEO post after having been working there successfully for 5 years.

H: broker are interesting job, they’re fantastical lord of people but they are quite demanding, and 5 and a half years working with a dedicate set of brokers was probably enough for me.

There was also rumors or arguments that said you were under great pressure when you step down. What’s the story there?

The answer is no I was not. It was entirely my decision. And think the evidence of that is that is was announced I was going in May and actually I was left at the end of the year, six month later. If somebody in the west is under huge pressure of business, he goes straight away.

The reason why people was sort of guessing is because at that time you’ve just start initiating a new project, right? But then you left.

I think that’s a fair point. Actually what we start to do is looking for a steel futures, but the steel is probably the biggest market out there for exchanges like LME. The problem with launching a new project on exchange is not something you do in 3 or 6 months; it’s maybe an 18-month process. And then you would probably got 2 to 3 years when it backs down to be successful. So what I’m thinking is yes I got it going, I put the team in place, but if I don’t leave now after 5 and a half years, then it probably commit me to ten years. And five and a half years is enough for broker and ten years will definitely be too much.

Did you know where you were going next?

No, because what I decided was what I was going to do a not executive career, and I was on the board of various companies and I was going down that route when I left the LME.

And you join this China Now?

What happen I was run up at the middle of December by one of my vice chairman James, who ask me if I was interested in exploring it. I have to be honest, say by this time I have been at home for a month and my wife and youngest daughter

They don’t want to see you any more

Happy to see me in the evenings but not during the day. So it’s clearly the message thank you very much, lovely but

It’s clearly on the faces

Yes, I got run up and I’ve lived in Asia lived in Hongkong and Japan for 20 years as a part of world I feel passionately about. And suddenly somebody invites you to run a festival, to introduce your homeland, to a country you are fond of has been very good to you. And sometimes they offered you such a challenge you just can’t say no to.

It’s a totally different arena, you know, you’ve worked in business, you’ve worked in air lines, you’ve worked in LME, you deal with cooper and steel and all of a sudden it’s culture exchange.

H: I’ve changed quite a lot. This is a change; it’s more dramatic, I fully accept. But you’re quite right, in my background, there is nothing to suggest that I’m an extremely culture person. But I like challenges.

Is it more fun than the exchange.

It’s different. I have to say it’s more different than anything else does. I have this enormous respect for the whole cultural community because the challenges putting on events, raising money, culture engagement is very difficult and they do a fantastic job. There is no doubt when you are in a business, a stable business with building revenues you understand your cost structures; it’s easier to manage than something is diverse as this is. But it’s been fantastic fun and I love it.

The focus in probably different as well, right? In the past you probably focused on your margins your bottom line.

You’re quite right. If you’re in the business, I can tell you about the cash flow, I can tell you about the bottom line, sharehold, value, and balance sheet all of that was my obsession. What is interesting about China Now, not for profit what we do it to break even, which is a very odd concept for me you know you don’t make any profit, I spend everything what about reserves what about planning for the future? So it’s very different concept.

You said you’ve lived in Asia for almost 20 years and you said it has a very huge influence on you; you love this part of the world. So did this experience give you an unique perspective of understanding the Chinese culture and has it been able to inspire you to the current post, you choice to join China Now?

I think certainly my experience in Hangkong having been visiting China for nearly 23 years did inspire me to take this job. I have to be a little bit cautious because as a businessman, although I visited China dozens of times, like most business man, I know the airplanes, the airports, the hotels, the offices so I think I had a lot of exposure to China. I’ll be cautious in saying I understand in fact culturally in terms of diversity I learn more in the last year than I probably did in the last 20. what I do have is the interest in China, and passion about it and really excited about what’s going on.

You’re working on China Now, how do you ensure that your effort can be long-lasting, can last into the future when it ends.

This is a good question.

You want that to happen?

Absolutely. One of the things I’m being told by my board China Now must has a legacy. And that’s why I think the area where we are going to be most effective. Because I take your point, you going visit the first emperor when you see Shao Lin monks, whatever, it’s one of the events you will feel that’s why education matters; that’s why engaging children, engaging students, telling them all, broadening their approach, opening their eyes. So I think the legacy of China Now the primary will be the educational understanding.

Is that possible that you yourself will be involved in education?

My wife is a teacher and she tells me I cannot teach anything to anyone. So my wife will do it, I won’t.

This is a long-lasting, it’s gonna be 6 months, but there’s gonna be a time when it ends. So what are you going to do afterwards?

The honest answer is I don’t know. I have my not-executive directorships that will carry on. I think having been working in business world for 32 years this is the first time I’ve done something that really has a social contribution and I really enjoyed it. And I think I’m getting into a stage in my life where I can do more for society. So carry on doing my none-executive directorships, I’ll look for couple of new challenges and I’d like to do something in the charitable sector.

The Main Talk interviewed Mr. O’Gorman, Country Representative of WWF-China

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:52:14 GMT

Hello and welcome to the MainTalk, I'm your host Qin Yi.

As China develops quickly, environmental protection becomes an increasing concern. This is especially true for 2008, as Beijing intensifies its campaign for a "green Olympic".

With the Olympic Games drawing near, Beijing has intensified its efforts to curb air pollution. Earlier this month, new vehicle fuel standards were introduced in Beijing to help cut emissions. All gasoline and diesel sold in the capital must meet the new China IV standards, which are equivalent to the European Union's Euro IV standards. Additionally, Beijing Shougang Group, one of China's leading steel manufacturers and also the city's major polluter, extinguished a fire at one of its four blast furnaces in January, as part of its pledge to cut normal output by half during the Olympics.

Throughout 2007, Beijing saw 246 blue sky days, narrowly fulfilling its annual target of 245. A recent report by the United Nations Environment Program said Beijing was on course to hold a Green Olympics, but that air quality remained a problem.

How will Beijing successfully tackle the air pollution problem? What's China's most urgent need in terms of environmental protection?

To talk about these issues, we are joined this week by Mr. Dermot O'Gorman, China Representative of the World Wild Fund for Nature.

Dermot O'Gorman is the Country Representative of WWF-China. He is Australian. He joined WWF in May 1998 and since then he has worked as the Deputy Director, Asia Pacific Programme for WWF International in Switzerland, the Regional Representative of WWF South Pacific Programme and as the Head of Government and Aid Agency relationships at WWF UK in London.

He has two degrees in Environmental Conservation and a master degree in Environmental Policy and Assessment from the London School of Economics.

Mr. O’Gorman, welcome to the main talk. As the Beijing Olympics approaches, one big question facing all of us is how Beijing will fulfill its promise of increasing its yearly ratio of days with good air quality to 80%. So you’ve been the city for a while, as a local resident, as far as you’re concerned, how in range are we from that target?

Well, living here in Beijing for a couple of years, I’ve seen that the number of blue sky days have been increasing, I think we have seen some very bad days continuing, and some of this may be due to some weather pattern, but I personal experience is things are getting better, and what I think is important is that measure of the Chinese government and the Beijing government boarding in place now for the Olympics continuing to make those improvements after that year.

One of the worst problems in the city is really traffic and pollution brought about by traffics, we know last summer the Beijing government, you know, carried out an experiment, it’s a kind of an air quality experiment by restricting or limiting the number of motor vehicles on the world, you know by alternate even and odd numbered license place, How effective was that?

I think if you read the results they had around 50% in promotion in the quality, but I think obviously that’s a measure that you couldn’t take at only certain times of the years for example the Olympic, but the government is also doing much more now in Beijing on promoting public transport, you see the decreasing price in terms of metro, and might many number of new metro lines opening this year, promoting bus transport.

How do you commute here in Beijing? Do you drive?

I catch a combinational bus to work, often metro home, sometimes I turned to ride a bicycle if possible, and I also have a hybrid car, electric petrol car.

Did you drive last summer when Beijing carried out that experiment?

I think I try to catch the metro and bus as much as possible.

A lot of people doing that using public transportation.

I think that more people are using public transportation now, and things like electric bikes, a green bike to popularity the bikes, I think that’s important that we don’t lose some of the bike culture here in Beijing.

Do you think people doing this for the Olympics?

First of all, people are putting a lot of effort, Beijing is putting a lot of effort into promoting this city, this time, this year, the Olympics, but also I think that congestion is causing people to look at other solutions, going back to ridding a bicycle or better a public transport like the metros, just bus transports systems.

Apart from traffic, where else is the pollution coming from?

Industry pollution, and I think that’s important source that needs to be tackled and there I think we need the Chinese government is already doing some efforts in not only around Beijing, but along this coast on the shanghai and Guangzhou. And there are about bringing new technologies, like putting in systems that future a lot of these pollutions out, closing down small extremely polluting factories and plants.

The capital irons steel company recently suspend part of its manufacturing, actually it trying to cut its manufacturing capacity in half in order to reduce pollution by 70% during Olympics, so we can see companies are responding, so do you think they can sustain that effort even after the Olympics, that’s a big question.

That I think is an important part of modernization program about bring in closing down old less efficient plants and even looking into new ways to this or building high tech more efficient industries.

You think they will continue this effort even after the Olympics?

At environmental level there are targets and stabled prices need to contribute to meet the target, so I think all of us have a contribution to make, not just the industry but individuals as well.

I’ll talk about the individual sector later but I’ll focus on the enterprise sector first you know Beijing Olympics has attracted over the 50 co-op sponsors already, how to expect them to contribute to this green Olympic?

It’s interesting that many of co-op sponsors for the Olympics not only here in Beijing but in the other places like in Rangoon and London have seized on the green Olympics is being exciting part that they would like to contribute to.

But the trick is many of them are actually in the resource field, you know, the oil giants, it’s a kind of hard for them to be energy efficient because they are in this industry.

You are right, there are some companies which need to play a very important role in the future providing low carbon energy.

They have to sort of rebuild their image.

More than they just rebuilding their image, but looking at long-term sustainable energy solutions.

You’ve said that what is good for environment is also good for business, what do you mean by that?

One is the growing amount of companies going into renewable energy, so we far to suffer that. These companies who some years ago were very small but now becoming multi-hundred millions companies as they set up big operations, tapping into the growing market and demand for renewable low carbon energy. The other one is we companies can increase efficiency for all the supply chain and production chain. For example, we working with the Coco Cole Company here who just last year in June in Beijing the CEO and chairman make a pledge to be water neutral, that means they were being increasing the efficiency use of the water. They were also be recycling the water so is to put back clean water back into the environment.

You also mention actually suggested individuals can also contributed to this, so like athletes participating in the Beijing Olympics, and local residents and tourists, how they can actually do this?

Sure.

I mean I heard that you are promoting this idea or this project initiative of neutralizing our carbon emissions on web site, can you explain to us how that works?

Sure, this is something we called goal for gold, which is campaign to encourage the athletes around the world you know come to Beijing in the August this year, to become neutral that means they would buy an offset which is golden standard, which is a type of CDM carbon credit, yeah, of high standard and then they would offset their travel by air flights here to Beijing.

So you mean people can actually pay for their carbon emissions

That’s right, so you can pay for your carbon emissions that money will going to support our renewable energy project around the world.

Is it expensive?

It’s not expensive, no, one hour, offsetting one hour flight may cost you around about 15 to 20 RMB.

Ok. Where has been their response so far?

Well, I think we’ve been encourage by response around the world people are extremely interested.

And not just athletes right?

Not just athletes.

A lot of people are doing this.

And I think in China where there is a new concept at the time we are promoting this, a number of individuals in China sign up to website to offset their air flights or their car emissions. So I think in the first month we have 12 Chinese individual sign up so that’s a good step.

I hope a lot of people will join this effort.

I think so, yeah, but even people can’t do this, there are other things they can do in their every day lives like turning off their television set at the end of evening so their standby light goes, to use energy efficiency light bulb that if collectively 1.4billion people can make a big difference.

As the biggest developing country, what resposibility should China shoulder in tackling the chlimate change?

Environmental protection has become one of the main issues today throughout the international community. In December 2007, the United Nations climate change conference was held in Bali,Indonesia. The 12-day event ended with the adoption of the Bali roadmap, which has shown the way and set a timetable for future negotiations on global climate change between developed and developing countries.

In tackling the problem, China's position has been clear and consistent. As the biggest developing country in the world, China supports the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities," which is shared amongst developed and developing countries alike.

China like many other developing countries is being accused of producing excessive greenhouse gas emission and its process of industrialization, we often hear a term called embodied energy. So what is it really? And why is it relevant here?

It’s a term which is still reasonably new not only china but also in the rest of the world as well. But it talks about the amount of energy is the production chain to produce a certain product. So if you are producing refrigerator for example the amount of energy they going to producing steel to producing manufacturing and putting together to shipping it to the customer to all those aspects calling many energy to make a finish product. the energy China uses provide those goods to other countries, so some of China’s emissions are in fact has resolved to providing a product to country like America.

So can we say that to a certain degree, China is actually paying the cost of pollution for some of the developed countries that consume “made in China” products, is it fair to say that?

We release report just before the Bali co-op which was such high preformed during China and the rest world. They show perhaps up to 25% of Chinese energy use is going on providing products for other developed countries.

China recently actually issue policies to restrict export of high-energy consuming products. So you see china is making an effort to reduce pollution and this process of industrialization. But to be realistic it takes a while for China to move up the manufacture ladder and you know adjust fully its export structure, so before it happens what can we do, you know, how can developed countries may be share this responsibility.

I think what the concept helps to do is to eliminate in a global discussion how important it come to a global solution for climate change. And it is not acceptable for countries like the US says, “well we are not going to do anything because china is becoming the largest CO2 emissions.”

The USA is taking a very exceptional stands on this, what about other countries? I know European countries have been able to set up a pretty good model right?

There are a number of European countries now that looking at substantial technology in transferring programs between with China and to providing financial system as well to help with that. So I think that is a model we should continue to see. Let me also emphasis that there are also many positive business opportunities that could come out of this. China is able to produce technologies often much cheaper than the rest world. So I’ll use light bulb for example Chinese produce the energy efficiency light bulbs they able to produce them much cheaper than could be produced in Europe. A calculation show that we can probably save 23 million tons of CO2, If the Europe was able introduce much more energy efficiency light bulb on cheaper, and more efficiency light bulbs.

International community has made agreements for example the Kyoto pact you’ve already mentioned and also the Bali roadmap to strike the balance between developing countries and developed countries but we also see countries like the US, they are still reluctant to rectify such an agreement or pact. So overall do you have any optimistic or pessimistic outlook for the future?

I have an optimistic outlook. We have seen a lot of movement in the last 12 months and in Bali although the US refuse to commit targets they did commit to a roadmap, which shows that, I think , that if you look at the US, the public opinion and business are taking this seriously. Many US cities signing up to their home type of carbon reduction emission targets. We see California, looking at California trading system, and we see a lot more interest in American public tourist thing. So I think we have the US elections this year as well, we saw the climate change played a big issue. In Australia actions where one party took a very negative view about Kyoto one and new prime minister took a positive view and he was successful. So I think they will properly see climate change play an important part in the US election as well.

How would you prioritize some of the possible options like you mentioned adaptation technology transfer and financial assistance? I know all those are important, all those must be carried out, but if you’re asked to prioritize that

No.1 is deforestation, must stop deforestation because we chopping down the forest in south Asia and Kango and there are also things like renewable technologies that they got to play a role. But other things like using in the short-term more gas rather than coal or oil, because gas is a cleaner solution.

So reducing coal burning

Reducing coal and oil and using more gas in the short term and I think that all of those would get us towards the target by 2015 to keeping below to the growth, but the ISAS says the key is the next 5 years, particularly next 5-10 years, we need to see some quick action now.

WWF engagement in China actually begin with the panda reservation protection project in 1980, but then your effects extended to other arenas in this country, so how do you think your role has changed the other years.

So in 1980, when we invite by the Chinese government, as you said we started work on pandas but we then branch out to work on other areas like forest conservation and water conservation. As a NGO here in China we can play I think three issues, first of all, we can bring ideas from around the world, and resources to help tackle Chinese environment programs, we can use due demonstration projects here in China, we perhaps sometime have element of risk , but as NGO， we can test out in the version of solutions we can adapt them to local circumstances, and then come out with practical solutions.

WWF is exactly more than a hundred countries around the global, how does your engagement in China different than elsewhere?

The engagement is very much focus on Chinese environment issues important to China. Some parts of China are gonna get drier, and some get wetter, and will also be more floods, more droughts, we will see a change in some of the high latitude wet lands in the northwest China, so in Qinghai glacier is retreating, wet land areas will change, so we’ll see water flows from some of the rivers, that starts in that area like the Yangtze River would see changes for that, and that’s going to impact everybody in China, you know, in Shanghai you couldn’t be isolated from the changes because the Yangtze River which Shanghai is the mouth is connected right to the areas going to affect our drinking water quality. Often we work on much broader scale issues, we’ve been promoting in the great river basin management here in the Yangtze River for the last several years.

What have you identify as the most urgent need in China in terms of environment protection, what is the worst problem?

One which I think is very important and most important is water issues, because water issues cut across a number of other environment issues as well. And you know that the state council places great importance on providing clean drinking water, protecting water source, because there will be a number of high profile cases in the last 2years of water pollution, the growing algae in the lakes

What are some other issues you mention there are several?

I think new issue is about Chinese ecological foot print and this is as China becomes more developed countries, consumption is increasing particularly along eastern side of China, and so we can see as individuals earn more money, they begin to consuming more products, and therefore have a big impact on foot print as we call it on this planet.

You have spent over 300million RMB in a hundred plus projects in China, what is the most effective efficient way of working things out in this country?

Raising awareness is very great important part. The second one I would say is some very practical demonstration of how you could address this problem, because without leading people for mental processed say ok, here is something i can do, it is not impossible, it’s not economic prohibitive and he comes out with some solutions, it’s really hard to get people change practice.

What are your future plans in China?

We would like to continue to work on the areas like the Yangtze River, which provides 40% of GDP to China, water issues are of critical importance and cities like shanghai, it can play very important role in the future, so for the example, shanghai will have a new program the last two years then we’re looking at a low carbon city and look at promoting low carbon solutions there, we also look at the impact of climate change may have as the sea level will rise, as changing the water flows may have impact on things like drinking water, and in the settlement of the Yangtze River and also this consumption issue as Shanghai people become affluent consuming more products

Ecological foot prints

So I think that something is going to keep us busy for a long time.

The Main Talk interviewed Mr. Miliband, British Foreign Secretary

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:26:18 GMT

Mr. Miliband, welcome to the main talk.

Nice to meet you.

This is your first time in Shanghai and first official visit as British Foreign Secretary in China. So what’s your impression I mean what’s on your agenda and what do you hope to achieve this time?

The agenda is to find by the challenges that all countries face the moment, internal challenges to do with how they cope with this strength and stresses of global economic and social change. But as a foreign minister, I’m here to try to understand how China seize its place in the world. And later we got the meeting from Mr. Yang for extensive discussions about some of the global problems that we face.

I think any city that develops Pudong a city or community the size of London in this 50 years got to be stuck by the scale of ambition, the scale of the people movements, the sense of dynamism, huge industries and huge communities moving across quite large distances. This is being done at a time of big economic change in China anyway. So I think it’s doubly complex. I suppose that big questions are about how economic and social and environmental base of Shanghai is going to develop and that’s what I talk with our mayor last night.

You’ve just had a tour of the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, what impresses you the most?

We had a description of the different zones of the world expo, we think that’s interesting to us because the theme “better city, better life” is one that’s important for us. Many of our cities were founded in the 19^th century. And I’ve been to rediscover the sense of economic and social vision and so the theme of the expo is very important, that’s why British government has put a lot of effort to ensure that we have, if not the best expo stand which I think is reserved for the Chinese government, the second best attraction which shows not just the history of Britain but also its modern innovative dynamic and quite diverse base.

You talk about the expo but what comes before the expo is the Beijing Olympics which starts in August this year and London will host the 2012 Olympics so there is obviously a good opportunity for us to work together on this project. So what are your expectations for this Olympics.

I think 2008 is seen in British eyes as a year of China, and that’s not least because of the Beijing Olympics and then the torch being handed on to London for 2012, I think British people want this Olympics to be great success. They are looking forward to it, the prime minister will be coming to the Olympics and we have to win some medals of course, we don’t expect to quite rival Chinese number of medal that we win but we’re looking forward to this being a real showcase for the way English and China see itself as a part of the world community.

We don’t support the boycott of the Olympics, I think it’s very important the Olympics will success. We want it to be a success, we want to contribute to them, and I think the collaboration that exist between Britain and China is partly at national level but also cities, cities like Shanghai twining with Liverpool and joining with London to try to address economy problem. And I think that sort of economic and political link is very important.

Now you talk about the links between cities and China and UK,More specifically.the UK government and Shanghai is working closely on the Dongtan Project. And it’s probably gonna be the first ever equal city in the world. Can you tell us the significance or how you view this project, why was this chosen as a new starting point for coverage between the two countries as specifically why was Shanghai chosen as a testbed?

I think Dongtan is probably the most exciting and the largest eco city development in the world. My understanding is that it is intended to be zero, very low carbon city of 35,000 people, our eco towns don’t really rival that level of ambition, at least in terms of size they rival the ambition term of low carbon requirement. I think that it’s very very important that country like mine which have made many mistakes during the 20th century in terms of the way they develop their economy and the industry and the way they pollute the atmosphere, we gonna to put our own house in order, but we’ve also gonna to help the countries like China make a leapfrog to develop their own economy, develop their own cities but in the way that doesn’t make the mistakes of industrialized world and not this sort of exchange that’s happening, some of the British companies whether in the aspect of architectural or urban planning are leading the work, the partnership with Shanghai. I think that the relationship is developed has been a fortuitous one. Shanghai made its own decision to draft develop on time but it looks around world for the best partner and it found the UK.

In order achieve low carbon, there’s gonna be a lot of eco-friendly materials used in the construction of this eco city, but that might drive up the construction cost and eventually the living cost for the local residents once this whole city is established. Do you have any advise or does the UK government has any experience that can share with us in resolving this issue?

I think I some way this is a matter of investment of fund that saves your money later. So while good insulation may cost you some extra in capital cause and in a few years, it saves quite a lot of money in terms of

You have to get the buying, right, but my own experience is actually being wasteful is not very smart economics and actually designing in low carbon, designing in high levels of energy conservation, for example, designing in low levels of transport cost because you minimize some the distances people are traveling to work. Those sort of wholistic development actually make sense economically as well as environmentally. And all of our studies showed within 20 or 30 years, the cost of high carbon development will actually rebound on all of us through the costs of climate change.

It’s sort of a long-term issue. But do you expect everyday people, you know, local residents to see the long-term picture, especially in the very beginning phase, maybe within the 3 or 5 years of the completion of this project, maybe the local residents will complain of it, can the government do something to help, I mean sort like preferential policies to ease this situation.

I don’t think this environmental challenge will be met by the government alone, or by the private sector alone. It needs the government, it needs the private sector and it needs individuals as well, must mobilization by individuals because we make choices about how wasteful we are, how we decide to live our lives. I think the biggest aficionados, the most committed of those environmental movement would say if you take environment seriously, you actually improve the quality of life. So for the people living in Dongtan, we’re hopefully not asking them, you’re not asking them to sacrifice their quality of life, you ask them to improve their quality of life, because who likes spending 2 hours everyday in the traffic jam, commuting, nobody likes.

So maybe it’s an effort of education, mass education to help people adapt to that sort of price up.

I think that’s partly about education but it’s also about thinking about economical and social and cultural and political development in a round. And trying to understand the shape of people’s life is not only defined by how they work but also defined by their home life and defined by the opportunity open to them. I think that our experience will be if you simply do these things in the athoc way, if you think about economy separate from society, separate from the environment, you don’t get the results you need. And my understanding of the Dongtan development is it trying to integrate those different factors and I think now speaks very well to Chinese ambition to be at the leading edge of thinking about how to live in the 21 century.

Just before you came to China, you told local Chinese reporters in London that you think the bilateral relations between UK and China is at its best-ever stage in history. And in fact Prime Minister Mr. Goldon Brown make similar comment before and he said our relationship has entered a new stage. What does that mean exactly?

I think there are really three phases you can see. There is a historic phase of relationships which you see in your own city of Shanghai you only have to go through the walking tour that I did this morning of Shanghai to see the history between our two countries. There was a phase, the second phase after the Second World War, the second half of the 20^th century when the understanding between our two countries was quite limited, there was big change happening here. But then the third phase that we are now is China reaching out the world, opening up you government talks about includes opening up to countries like mine, and I think what Britain offers to China is that we are the country that open not just for business but for cultural exchange, for the sort of shared effort that can make both of our countries improve and the way we both being winner from the policy of opening up. We’ve had our own opening up, you’ve got opening up, we’ve been winners and we both now going to work together to meet the challenges. I think you own leaders have said that Britain relationship with China are very strong, we obviously shared the members of UN Security Council but Britain is also proud to be an European countries and I hope that we can ensure that the relationship between Europe and China is strong as well as the bilateral relationship in Britain and China.

How are the new elements and dynamics in the bilateral relationships gonna be reflected in your foreign policy towards China?

I think that’s first of all, the opening up that I described being your policy that we are pursuing too. Secondly, we have a very important economic relationship. Thirdly, the cultural relationship. But critically I think this week we’ll be discussing following up the prime minister’s visit in January. We’ll be discussing what we doing together on shared problems. There was shared problems do with trade, shared problems to do with climate

I think that internally and internationally, there are three big challenges. There is a challenge of inequity; there is a challenge of insecurity and there is a challenge of unsustainability, environmental unsustainability. And those three challenges I think define certainly we are trying to tackle within the UK I think the big issue within China as well your government has spoken about. But also big issue internationally, and I think more important part of modern world is if you want to tackle domestic problems of equality or domestic problems of security or domestic problems of sustainability, you need to tackle them not only in your country but also internationally, because these problems are cross-border.

Right, you have to put it in the global context.

Yes, exactly.

What I think is you can’t say is the opportunities for globalization are about development, they are about great security and they are about great cooperation between nations. The dangers are insecurity, unsustainability and inequity. And positive dynamic we’re trying to see is internal reform and external cooperation,

There has been recent rising signs of anti-globalization, and people blame it for job losses in developed countries and the poorest countries in the world been even more marginalized. So I want to get your opinion.

I think both Britain and China benefit from opening up, benefit from the globalization. But both Britain and China have to see that around the world there are dangers and protectionism. There are dangers of the countries aren’t benefiting in the same way that we are. We are battling against it. So what we do about that I think we have to first of all recognize that there are dangers and protectionism and we have to think how do we deal with them. Secondly, we have to recognize there used to be a bargain at the heart of economic globalization, that bargain has to be our fairness , so all of our country have to recognize that we have to make sure a trade deal that we secure is actually in the interests of the poorest countries, I think that’s very important. Thirdly, we have to recognize that we need to support countries in billions and zillions in the faces of risks of globalization. And that’s something I think both of our countries are able to contribute to. So we have to be aware of the public opinion, understand why that’s turning in some countries and take measures not to injure ourselves but to protect our own interest as we go forward.

You said both UK and China have benefited from globalization. Of course we agree with that but isn’t it also creating pressures on government for example on the UK government, I heard recently there were protest within the UK when Burberry said they were going to move production to China. And also in year 2003, UK’s trade deficit with China continue to grow, so isn’t that creating pressure on the UK government?

Well, there are some pressures in our country and part of my job in China is to explain the pressures but actually the pressure in UK are very limited. I think there are other countries people talk about the election campaign that happens in other countries where you hear strong protection. And I think in Britain people understand downside of globalization but they think the upsides are bigger. But I think that’s important since we do think that globalization and opening up and free trade is actually in the interest of not just our two countries but actually of all countries if it’s done right. We have to think very hard about how we liberalize trade, how we organize the global trading system just pick that example and I think there are some cautionary words in some of the comments being made around the world that something we have to reflect on. And we have to understand those fears literalizing are ones after to be mad not through protectionism but through the way in which we build the resilience of the society. So we’re be helping countries to develop their own welfare systems, will be countries helping to develop a capacity to make benefits to make most of the benefits of the trade. There are always I think there are warnings for countries like ours and we have to think how we heed that warning not by making our own lives more miserable but I think with their own some beneficial solutions that we can take forward together.

In the past a few years, there are quite a number of trade conflicts between EU and China, so in the future, how is Britain gonna use its impact or influence in the EU to help resolve this issues?

I think the most important thing is to have a sense of reciprocity. Trade is got to be a two-way street. I think Peter Mendson, the European trade commissioner is here the moment. I know many people in China are worried about protectionist sentiment in Europe. I think they’re right to be worried, I think they’re right to recognize that there is a concern in parts of Europe, much less in Britain, because I think Britain is a country which is always be a free-trading nation but we’ve got to recognize there is protectionist sentiment and what Peter Mendson, the trade commissioner is saying is there has to be reciprocity. Let’s understand that trade only works in its two-way street. And that’s an important message I think for Chinese leaders that he’s taking forward it’s what I support. And I didn’t think this is about punishing China for its success, I think we should celebrate China’s success. Both of us should recognize there are responsibilities on both sides and not certainly a theme of our contribution to the European debate, I think it’s certainly want to be taken up by European leaders. Not is the European commission, not as long term as protectionism, because I think it’s different from that, it’s about saying let’s take the trade, the open trade mission forward, but in a way that is genuinely reciprocal and fair to all sides.

What’s are you thoughts on overseas expansion of Chinese firms, for example the buyout of the engine from Rover by Chinese automakers. I know similar cases has startle up the worried in countryside of the US, you know similar case was between CNOOC and Unocal stop by the US legislators.

Both in respect of Chinese investment in the UK but also Chinese of more funds investment in London, we are open economy, we benefit from that, but there are rules to the openness. And Chinese firms that invested in UK has follow the rule that Chinese set once to be very clear that our funds has to be governed by commercial criteria. And we’ve always been in an open economy and benefit from the rules established. And I think it’s a very beneficial relationship. So we welcome Chinese investment in the UK and in the same way we want British firms to invest in China in an open and fair way.

As long as the rules are well respected.

Exactly.

I notice climate change is one of t he most popular key words of your posting. So can we imply that climate change or environment protection factor will strongly influence British foreign policy making?

We’ve identified the low carbon development one of the 4 top policy priorities alongside techni-terrorism, producing conflict, building up international institutions that force the cooperation. I think my blog, fco.com.uk , I hope your viewer would be able to access

We’ve already bookmarked it.

Very good. I think it’s one way of trying to allow people to have a sense of one’s blog but also comment bank, because on my blog you can post a comment and reply giving your opinions. And people often say that the debate on the blog is interesting as the comment on the blog. But given we now living in the world where the distance between government and the governed is quite large where politicians can get off touch. This is one maybe small way of trying to remain in touch. So you will see my blog about my time in Hong Kong if you click on down if this is be screamed on, it’s Monday you’ll be able to see my reflection on my times in China.

Ok, I’ll do that. I’m kind of expecting that. what is your goal during your tenure as the foreign secretary of the Britian, especially in regard to Sino-UK relations, how are you going to bring that to the next level?

I think any foreign minister would want to say his values or interests would be advanced, values or interests of the country taken forward and we know that the next few years are very very important for us domestically on issues like European development on terms of security, in terms of climate change, that’s important. And none of those problems are going to be tackled without the engagement of China. I feel the balance of the power of the world shifting from west to east and we need to make sure that we understand the new China as they understands us and we able to find common ground to work together. That’s the purpose of not just the visit but the ongoing relationship I have with foreign minister Yang.

You’re viewed as the British political equivalent as Wayne Ronney to the English Soccer Team.

I think he’s injured at the moment. I’m not sure

So some people say you will be the next prime minister for the UK, any thoughts on that prediction?

No. never make predictions in politics. We’ve got very good prime minister just started so I look forward to a long tenure working for him as foreign minister.

Ok, thank you very much. We have a gift for you.

The Main Talk interviewed Vicente Gonzalez Loscertales, Secretary General of BIE

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:01:51 GMT

Hello and welcome to The Main Talk.

I'm your host Qin Yi.

With two and a half years to go, the city of shanghai is in full swing preparing for the 2010 world expo. After the unveiling of the world shanghai mascot HaiBao, you can see this cool little blue creature almost everywhere in the city.

There's going to be a lot of excitement in shanghai not the mention the city and china as a whole to provide an unforgettable experience that might inspire future expo generations.

The World Expo is among three major world festivals, including the Olympics and the World Cup. It is regarded as the Olympic Games of economics, science and technology. And this is the first time it's been held in a developing country.

On November 15th, 2007, nearly 400 officials from 180 countries and international organizations attended the second participants meeting for the 2010 World Expo. They got a progress report on the event's preparations, concerning construction, financial assistance and participation services.

An estimated 70 million visitors will swarm into Shanghai in 2010. Can the city handle the volume and present a high-quality expo? As many previous host cities suffered financial losses, what value can the expo really bring to Shanghai? Will countries like China help shape the future of the World Expo?

Now to discuss these issues, I invited Vicente Gonzalez Loscertales, secretary general of BIE

Mr. Loscertales has been the Secretary General of the BIE for 15 years. In this capacity, he has overseen 5 World Expo events. His relationship with Shanghai dates back to 1994. When after BIE accepted China as the 46th member state in 1993, he visited the city for the first time. This year Mr.Loscertales has been frequently flying between Shanghai and Paris. From day one, he has shown great confidence in Shanghai's ability to host.

In 2001 the Chinese Government officially submitted its application for the 2010 World Expo, and by the time the Shanghai Expo debuts, Mr. Loscertales will have worked with the city for 10 years. And, he's been clearly excited every step of the way.

Well Mr. L welcome to The Main Talk.

Very nice having you here.

The way that shanghai expo affects the life of Shanghai residents is really different from past events because our expo site is built in the old town area and as you have noticed and as you have seen that a lot of people are being relocated whereas in the past most expo sites were built in emergent communities and I remember back in 2001, site selection actually played a key role for us to win the bid from BIE right?

Yes that was a key element in order to decide for the shanghai expo because, first of all, because of the mission of this urban rehabilitation program, the expo cite in shanghai covers nearly 5.3 square kilometers in this area it was and still is more degraded in the sense that factory was polluted, housing was of low quality it also was close to the city center.

The recovery of this area, decoration of a green area, the fact of giving life to the two sides of river, the fact of creating a quality construction in this area and improving the quality of life for the new residents in this area.

Yeah we've actually seen a lot of exciting changes in these areas you mentioned renovations of old buildings and factories and there are big shopping areas being built there and people are being relocated. But in addition to that, what changes will the expo bring to shanghai to the city and the residents in the city?

The expo is a very large public work program that means there will be a lot jobs the construction created. They make the economic activity increase also a lot of new companies will be created, for example in presentation of exhibits. You know you have a really big capacity here in shanghai ,but that is not enough. A lot of joint ventures between foreign companies and local companies will be created and after that, these new companies will be leaders in the Chinese market. We’ve got to continue operating after the expo for many young people this is a very good opportunity to create the point that their own companies can be able to be in contact with foreign companies, which can be investors and create together, joint ventures. We certainly contribute to the environment of the exhibition industry in China.

Shanghai plans to attract a record 200 participating countries and international organizations. That’s the target. But in your latest comment, you said that quality is more important than quantity and you mentioned this term the concept of quality expo, what do you mean by that?

Quality expo means expo in which the theme of the expo is well-developed by all the participants in which the pavilions of the expo are high quality samples of architecture, in which the quality of the contact and cooperation between the countries is good, and in which every participant plays an active role. A quality expo is also an expo where you can see the cultural shows coming from all the countries----they are high quality shows. What we require from them is the quality presentation. We don't want just symbolic presence like a flag, and two or three items. We want them to be active. We want them to show the best they have and for that Chinese government is putting the disposal of developing countries. They fund an amount of money financially in order to help them to have a quality presentation.

You mentioned that Chinese government is making a lot of investment in presenting such an expo, I will go back to that question later, but in order to achieve those goals you just mentioned to present a quality expo, what difficulties might we be aware of?

We have two risks. The one is not to develop the theme properly to have some banal presentation to come here and just make some tourist publicity of the country without going deeply into the theme of the expo. The second thing is to have a passive presentation-----we don't need to go see something in the small pavilion, what we need is to have the country with all the wealth of the country in culture, politics and science and all the countries are here acting and interacting in the best way they can.

Does he think the world expo is diminishing in this era of information technology?

After 1970s, most expo suffered financial losses, how does he interpret these figures?

This is something that you cannot recover the money in the six-month operation of expo.

The first World Expo,the Great Exhibition of 1851, took place in London's Crystal Palace. It attracted a total of six million three hundred thousand visitors.

Early World Expos originated from a market place environment. As required by modern industrial and economic development, they were especially focused on trade and famous for the display of technological inventions and advancements. Great new engines, the telegraph, light bulb, even the Eiffel Tower first appeared at the expo.

World Expos didn't focus on a specific theme until Chicago held the expo in 1933 under the title "A Century of Progress". And from then on, each year a new theme would fit the societal interests of the time. World War II prompted humankind toward self-examination. Technology and inventions have remained important, but no longer as the principal subjects of the Expo. Later, humanity was the focus, especially in relation to nature. Cross cultural dialogues and the exchange of solutions also become defining elements of expos to come...

The world expo has actually shifted its focus from the very beginning to present. What's the driving factor behind this evolution of its theme?

With the time, the idea of progress was changing. Progress is not only production; progress is not only technical innovation; progress is a wholistic concept, which is more related to the improvement of quality of life, to the improvement of human condition, to the improvement of the relationship between mankind.

For the very same reason in the context of globalization, some people argue that argue that we don't really need a physical expo anymore because of this era of Information Technology. How do you respond to this argument that the world expo is actually diminishing?

What we have seen is more and more candidates to organize expos all over the world, stronger competition and larger number of visitors to expo. That means something. That means you are not satisfied with seeing on-line things, you want to see that directly. All of us need it live, you know, first hand experiences. As for the information technology, this is not either information technology or expos, this is expos with information technology to promote the message of expo and to bring the expos to more people who are unfortunately not able to take the plane and come and visit the expo.

From an economical perspective, you already mentioned the shanghai government and the Chinese government is making a lot of investment into the 2010 world expo. But after the 1970s, most expo actually suffered financial losses. Now I've some figures here

In 1992, Sevilla your home town, we lost 300 million US dollars and 1998, Lisben, 550 million. In 2000 Hannover, 1.2 billion Euros. So how do you interpret these figures?

I disagree with these figures and I’ll explain why. First thing is in all these figures includes a big infrastructure building programs. This is not a loss. With infrastructures you build, a hotel or a motorway, this is something you cannot recover the money in the six months operation of world expo; this is something that needs twenty years in order to get the money back.

This is like the investment in fixed assets.

Second thing, the tax income produced to the country by the expo. The figures of Hannover 1.4 billion marks deficit was due to the infrastructure, but also the German government made specially out of the expo 1.7 billion marks fiscal income.

If we see the shanghai expo, we see the seven new metro lines, all the new accesses to the cite, all the cleaning of the factories, all the constructions of new houses. Can we pay that in six months?

No. We have to take into consideration in expo this: the construction of pavilions, the contents of pavilions, and the operation of the expo and if we take that into consideration, all the expos make profits.

China will be the first developing country to host the world expo. Will developing countries, especially with fast growing economy like China, play a greater role in the future of the world expo?

For countries like China, they are going to play roles in future expos. We have a candidate for 2012 expo Morocco. Morocco is a developing country, but it is a country now with great dynamism and also a great tradition of culture, it's the candidate for 2012. For 2015 we have Turkey and Turkey is also a very dynamic country with a powerful economy and at the same time can be considered a developing country in many aspects, also a country with glorious cultural tradition. This is also the future of expos.

These fast growing countries are actually very big markets themselves they have a lot of attractions for overseas investment and cooperates as well, so they can help attract a lot of corporate sponsors to the expo as well, like reinforcing each other, right?

Of course. They are not only a very attractive market, an attractive country for investment. There are also strong supporters, China is an example, but also Turkey, they are the markets of neighbor countries, Russia, European Union countries, there are full of Turkish products. This dynamism meaning the economy is accompanied by the will of having a new image of the country and expos help a lot in the image building process, in the branding of the country.

Mr Vicente Gonzalez Loscertales was born in 1947 in Spain. He earned his PH.D in history from the University of Madrid in 1975, and taught there for nearly ten years. He worked for the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Deputy Director General for Scientific and Technological Cooperation from 1988 to 1989. His life changed in 1992 when the World Expo was held in Seville. And he has been involved with it ever since.

You made that career move at 42 years old. You switched from teaching to eventually working for world expo. What was the motivation? What inspired you?

I think we have a transitional stage. I worked almost ten years also in the foreign affairs ministry in international cooperation, which allowed me to be in charge of cooperation programs in many fields, housing, water, agriculture, assistant to the municipalities, be in Latin America, particularly in central America. These practical experiences, joined to the experience of being a doctor and having done research for years, lecturing the students of university. They were very good background to come to the expos. Expos are a theme development exercise, a concept but at the same time they are huge cooperation programs, huge international relations, activities. Then I had a very good preparation, I had the theoretical bases, plus the experience in different countries that led me to the expo in 1989 and then I consecutively worked for the expo.

Right, because for you it was like a natural transition you were able to leverage your past experience and knowledge. But I also want to ask that I know you are from Seville and we know that's the hometown of Columbus, the great explorer. So, is something with the Seville heritage, you know the love for adventure and also exploration that led you to such an adventurous career as the world expo, is that true?

The open spirit of Seville which you know make you very open to every influence but also you know Seville has had two Expos. One in 1929, a very beautiful expo which transformed the city and I was born in the hospital in Seville was the former pavilion of Mexico. And I was born there and the first housing we live was built for the expo of 1929. That was the beginning of my expo career.

That's interesting. I don't know that. And the second time when Seville held the expo you actually work down there, participate it and that's how you got into this career.

I had, you know, the chance and privilege to going back to make home city. I'm work there for this expo, but I didn't realize that the rest of my professional life will be you know busy dealing with expos.

Right, it's really an exciting job and takes you a lot of different places in the world, including China. And I know you have a lot of Chinese friends and colleagues you've already mentioned. Do you know what they think of you?

I can feel that you know they have been very affectionate to me. They can feel the friendship and they can feel you know that we work very well together.

We’ve actually got some standby clip and we'll show you the answer.

He is a straight forward person. When he is happy, he is happy. You can read his mood on his face.

He loves reading, he reads a lot. When we have free time, we go to book shops. We bought different books for different tastes.

Every time he comes to Shanghai, he spends all his time working; he's never about leisure time. I feel sorry because I met him at the airport, and we brought him immediately to the mission room, and we have a working meeting all the time. I admire his working spirit.

Something I remember of that very interesting clip were you are a very straightforward person, you are very direct, you show your mood on your face. Is that true? How true was that?

Yes, it's true. I don’t know whether it’s good, but you know it’s true. You know it's a duty of friendship to say things in good way and nice way but clearly and straightforward in order that there is no misunderstanding we can't work together. This is the principle I apply to both my professional and personal life.

Did you have any problems dealing with your Chinese colleagues or working with them. I mean Chinese people tend to go around the bushes, especially when you meet with someone new.

Well, I think I never had any problem working with my Chinese colleague. At the beginning, well I have the advantage of having experience with expo and some of my colleagues is the first time they are dealing with the expo. Then there is sort of a transmission of knowledge. Then everyone has his own ideas, we should discuss these ideas to see if they fit what the world expo want to do. You have to be in certain way you have to provide guidance, also to understand this is the expo of China, and there are responsibility of the Chinese and therefore we have to give to this expo the national identity of china and make you see it is the quality to be internationality and the tradition of Chinese.

Yes, as it is acceptable to everyone, you do hurt each other. Well thanks to world expo you are very popular here now and we look at you as old friend that's what we say in Chinese, old friend. But I know you say the 2010 shanghai world expo is the biggest challenge in your entire expo life but we certainly want to make it easy for our old friend. So what are your worries?

I'm not worried. The thing we should do is to work hard to be able to communicate well, to pass the information and you know to have a sort of joint responsibility.

So what's you next big theme after the 2010 expo?

Well after the 2010expo, we have the 2012 over there.

So just continue on to you expo career.

Yes, but I'm not becoming any younger I think it will be the end of my career around 2012, probably 2015.

I know every time you went to a new city, there are two places you would like to visit. One is the local museum and the other is the local market. So I went to the biggest folk art market in Shanghai and got a present for you.

Do you know what it is? It’s a paper cut of you portray. You know paper cut is a traditional Chinese art form, so I hope you really like it and I want to explain it to you. This is you right? Does it look like you?

Yes.

About The MainTalk

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 06:51:41 GMT

This 30-minute talk show discusses the hottest political, economic and social issues in Shanghai, China and around the world. We invite the key stakeholders in these events to give their most personal opinion on the issue. This one-on-one interview program offers the most relevant, first-hand view of the current affairs that you care about the most.

The program generally includes three sections. Section I focuses on the news event itself. Section II explores its bigger impact. Section III relates to the personal experience of the guest.

The program airs at 7pm every Monday on ICS.

About ICS

Launched on January, 1^st, 2008, the International Channel Shanghai is an international television service based in Shanghai, under the Shanghai Media Group. ICS reaches 4.4 million families in Shanghai through the cable network, IPTV, and also broadband TV. It broadcasts 19 hours continuously everyday, 7.5 of which is original programing. All are in English or Japanese, along with Chinese subtitles. 8 formats are covered: news, information, fashion, entertainment, family, sports, talk shows and foreign TV shows and movies. ICS holds the weight of becoming the major information provider for all English- and Japanese-speaking viewers in Shanghai.