Sometimes China seems to have cornered the market for superlatives: the biggest, the fastest, the cheapest, the best – whether the subject is economic growth or Olympic pageantry. Now the country is planning the biggest ever world’s fair – the Shanghai World Expo, which will run for six months next year, and is expected to attract 70m visitors, 3.5m of them foreigners.

Beijing’s goal is to score another triumph for brand China: yet another giant coming-of-age party, like last year’s Beijing Olympics.

Shanghai wants to take its place in the history books, alongside the world’s greatest world’s fairs: London’s Great Exhibition in 1851, at the Crystal Palace; the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, which produced the Eiffel Tower; and Chicago’s 1893 Colombian Exposition, which introduced the first Ferris Wheel.