Today, Shanghai's GDP is eight times that of 20 years ago. Across the Huangpu River from old Shanghai, Pudong is a developmental miracle. Catalyzed by reform, which was initiated in 1978 by Deng Xiaoping (two years after the death of Mao Zedong), Pudong has become a world center of finance and trade, a massive economic bridge linking China with all nations. Pudong is China's new kind of revolution, where some of the most modern skyscrapers in the world, headquarters of major financial institutions, look down as if menacingly on the historic Bund, dwarfing the older, smaller buildings.
As one leader tells me, "When constructing Pudong, we learned from the world's developed cities, but rather than mere copying, we adopted their strong points and improved their weak points. Pudong looks like Manhattan, but it is superior in layout--less congested and sunshine reaches city streets."
Just like Expo's thematic goal of "Better City, Better Life" is breathtaking and grand, Shanghai's goal is equally expansive and visionary: China's largest metropolis will become a leading center in four vital areas of international importance: finance, trade, shipping, and general economics.
One morning I visit one of Shanghai's massive container ports.
Containers, containers -- they fill the horizons, they saturate my sight. Containers, containers -- the blood cells of the arteries of global trade, transporting the products that feed the economic body of humanity -- the raw power of Shanghai's growing might. Shanghai is already the world's second largest port (after Singapore) -- by some measures the largest -- and it is growing still. It's overwhelming and, to some, perhaps a little frightening.
China knows that logistical efficiency, in trade and shipping, generates commercial strength. I follow Shanghai's ambition. Key is finance, and I know the fellow in charge.
