Our friend, long time advocate of an open, transparent US Expo 2010 pavilion bidding process (and member of the once sole bidder for construction of the US pavilion—BH&L Group) Robert Jacobsen has just alerted us to this no-punches-pulled article by Adam Minter in Foreign Policy magazine in which Minter lambasts pretty much every aspect of the US pavilion from the opacity of the tendering process to the political fallout caused by a host of missteps by Shanghai Expo 2010, Inc., the team eventually appointed to build the US pavilion. Here are a few choice quotes:

"...what happened after the unsuccessful RFP process is shrouded in secrecy, which the State Department has refused repeated requests to clear up."

"I asked Eliasoph how her group was chosen, and she claimed that the selection process was competitive between "two or three teams," despite the fact that the RFP process had ended months earlier and her group hadn't been part of it." 

"... the U.S. government's diplomatic official who serves as the pavilion's final decision maker, official liaison, and public face -- told me that the pavilion process, prior to his role in it, included "the good, the bad, and the ugly, and there's been a little bit of all of that..."

"It wouldn't matter nearly so much if Shanghai Expo 2010, Inc. had performed to the level expected of it by the State Department. But the sad fact is that Eliasoph and Winslow raised almost no money from the time they were awarded the pavilion authorization, missed multiple construction deadlines, and, in the process, alienated large segments of the U.S. business community in Shanghai, as well as numerous Expo officials, according to several individuals in close contact with the Expo authorities and the expat business community. Finally, in the spring of 2009, Chinese Foreign Ministry officials, concerned and frustrated by the faltering U.S. effort, were forced to make personal appeals to Clinton to fix the situation."

And those are just a tiny sample of what's included in this hard-hitting four-pager. Read the full, graft and incompetence revealing exposé here. There's even more on Minter's personal blog, Shanghai Scrap.

On another note, if the Warner Brothers produced 4-D film shown in the US pavilion is anything near as good as Dumb and Dumber, we'll be there!

More Shanghai Expo 2010 related content on ChinaTravel.net:

Yes, They Can. USA Finally Figures Out How to Fund Their Pavilion
Cirque du Soleil's Shanghai Expo 2010 program details emerge
15 Shanghai pickpocket hotspots-and how to defend against theives
Shanghai Expo 2010 tickets: Pricelist