Conclusion

Summary

Over a century and a half, expos have been used by the Japanese state, local authorities, and private companies, not to prescribe meaning, but to aggregate interest – to accommodate the multiple demands of organizers, exhibitors, and visitors – and thereby to foster development. After three decades of economic stagnation, the age of regional expos in Japan seems to have passed, though ‘expo’ (haku) remains a useful, protean term. Japan also remains a reliable participant in international exhibitions overseas, rehearsing an old story about harmony between nature and culture, first retailed in the late nineteenth century. The Japanese state also continues to use expos at home to promote its vision and plans for the future. The next world expo will open in April 2025, promulgating the United Nation’s sustainable development goals and the Japanese government’s vision of Society 5.0, while also promising Osaka’s neoliberal ‘restoration’. Meanwhile, the Japanese lesson about the utility of expos for development has been absorbed elsewhere. Shanghai in 2010 and Dubai in 2021 deployed, Riyadh in 2030 and possibly Busan in 2035 will riff on, a template first made in Japan.