People's Daily, the leading and most influential national newspaper in China, marks the conclusion of the historic, 184-day Expo on Sunday with a Monday prominent front-page editorial, which is titled "Expo Shanghai is never ending". Its detailed excerpts read as follows:
In the past six months, China has invited guests and friends from all corners of the world to the Expo Site along the beautiful Huangpu River in Shanghai, and held a grand, magnificent gathering of human civilizations, and this successful, splendid and unforgettable World 2010 Expo Shanghai will go down in the Expo history.
More than 73 million visits made by people, both from China and overseas, have lifted a rising global dream together in Shanghai, and the wise, magnanimous Expo community focus on the world's indefinable ideas on the Expo Site, which covers a 5.28 sq-km area like a global village. For the past six months, the expo has written a new chapter for the Chinese people's exchanges and mutual emulations with people of other countries, and a new chapter for all exchanges and emulations of human civilizations.
People are reluctant to part with one another and say farewell to the festival which has lasted 184 days under the theme banner of "Better City, Better Life" and to the festival event of the human family with "understanding, communications, togetherness and cooperation".
Since the first World Expo was held one and a half centuries ago, substantial fruit-laden achievements in industrialization have enabled people to enjoy a fairly easy and comfortable life with an unlimited access to communications which their ancestors could hardly expect to attain.
Industrial civilization, the editorial however noted, is a double-edged sword, enriching modern lives and bringing challenges to the human society at the same time, such as the environmental degradation and the surging urbanization of many dilemmas, and the Expo Shanghai made people stop and think about their future. Only by gathering to communicate and cooperate with understanding, can people's dream of peace and development extend continuously and the city makes its life better.
The Expo Shanghai has erected a milestone with far-reaching significance in the long history of the Expos over the past 184 days. The new record has been chalked up by China and its mega city of Shanghai with an ardent desire of openness to the world.
Expo 2010 Shanghai has been a successful event. A total of 246 participants, including 190 countries and 56 international organizations, have partaken in the Expo Shanghai. There have been more than 70 million visits to the Expo Site, another record number in the expo history. The 1.3 billion people in China have embraced the world and their fiery passion for the expo is so touching and inspiring.
The United Nations Habitat Organization once stressed over a decade ago that "our cities must be able to be a happy place to live with human dignity, health, safety and happiness." Though the expo, the first exhibition whose theme focused on the city, has ended, people's hopes and expectations, pinned on cities, will endure, and so will the Expo spirit.
Never ending will be the unremitting efforts of the pluralistic international community to seek consensus through communications. Nations with varied hallmarks and differences can live together in harmony in the expo "village" to discover and appreciate one another's "splendid colors". The expo has gathered people of different nations with different races and varied cultural backgrounds to communicate with their mind, enhance friendship and cooperation and seek common development.
The Chinese element, Chinese characteristics, and Chinese style have also given a vivid expression in the Expo Site, so the world has come to see here a real China, an ancient China with a history of more than 5,000 years, as well as a modern China under a rapid development in the course of reform and opening up.
Never ending will also be efforts the international community makes in reaching common ground in a diversified world amidst the concept of sustainable and low-carbon development. The Expo Site has set a good example and serves as a valuable starting point for sustainable urban development, and a key focus to spur China to the adherence to building a resources-saving, environment-friendly society as a way to hasten the transfer of economic growth mode. The people-oriented concept, with an all-round, coordinated and sustainable development has long been China's firm choice. Starting from the Expo Shanghai, the low-carbon road will go on extending to the future of humanity.
Moreover, never ending will be the open-minded inclusiveness with both harmony and differences and the Word Expo managerial guideline, which is pragmatic and the people-oriented. With such never-ending ethical and cultural attainments, the expo has left the most precious gifts to the world and China, and a more open, magnanimous China will work with other nations on earth to jointly promote the progress of human civilizations.
