Japan’s World Expo: a positive vision of the future for our divided world?
Fifty-five years since Osaka last hosted, rocks from Mars, domestic androids and artificial hearts are part of showcase on ‘unloved’ island

April 12, 2025, The Guardian

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As clunky as it sounds, “designing a future society for our lives” isn’t a bad ambition for the world in these troubled times. From this Sunday, organisers of the 2025 Exposition in Osaka will be hoping that appeal will put the event’s unsettled preparations in the shade for a six-month celebration of our common humanity.

The western Japan city is preparing to host its second World Expo, 55 years after the first was held in a country eager to capitalise on fading memories of the second world war as it embarked on its postwar journey to become an industrial and technological powerhouse.

Then, 64 million people descended on Osaka’s northern suburbs to view the Tower of the Sun – still a popular site in the commemorative park – and a moon rock retrieved by Apollo 12.

The 2025 version opens under a geopolitical cloud dark enough to cast a shadow over the 960-acre grounds on the reclaimed Yumeshima (“Dream Island”), a former dumping ground for industrial waste and, for successive Osaka governments, a plot of land in perennial need of a purpose.

The expo is the most convincing attempt yet to make use of the unloved island, until now a blot on the landscape, with Osaka’s industrial skyline on one side and the busy shipping lanes of the Seto inland sea on the other. In its mission to bring people together, 150 countries and regions will showcase the best of their culture and technology, albeit with an acknowledgment that humanity is more divided than at any time most of the millions of expected visitors can recall.

They should, though, marvel at a Martian meteorite discovered by Japanese scientists in Antarctica in 2000, interact with androids that could one day live in their homes, view a beating artificial heart made of stem cells and – not for the faint-hearted – stare back at an image of what they might look like in 25 years’ time.
Viewed from the grand ring – a 2km (1.24 mile) wooden promenade that encircles the waterfront site – there is an incongruity to the 150 pavilions, from the flamboyance of Turkmenistan to the neat wooden contours of Japan. And all separated by lots of Tarmac and concrete. The earthquake-resistant wooden “skywalk”, though, is a feat of craftsmanship, built with a traditional joinery method used in the construction of ancient shrines and temples, its network of cypress, cedar and pine beams destined to become a shady oasis when Japan unleashes its brutal summer heat midway through the event.

The expo theme’s tagline – “towards a brighter future for all” – feels laughably elusive, but credit should go to the organisers for addressing the harsh realities of the world outside.

The blue and yellow sign over Ukraine’s booth states that the country is “not for sale”, echoing comments from the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Russia has chosen not to take part.

外刊精读266：大阪世博会能否缝补破碎的世界 (选自The Guardian)

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外刊精读266：大阪世博会能否缝补破碎的世界 (选自The Guardian)