From his balcony in Shanghai, Feng Zhenghu greets petitioners who have traveled for assistance with their grievances.  For many, that is as close as they can get to the human rights activist, who has been under virtual house arrest for launching "Shanghai Expo of Unjust Cases," a website that used the problematic Shanghai Expo as a platform to critique the city government. 

Feng Zhenghu made headlines last year when he squatted in the Tokyo Narita International Airport for over three months, after being denied re-entry to China eight times.   He returned home in February and a few months later "Chinese authorities began restricting his movements."
 

A well-known advocate for Chinese petitioners and a self-taught lawyer, Feng Zhenghu insists that he is only demanding the observation of current laws by authorities.  He remains optimistic on the possibility of change, calling upon the public to "overcome our fear... and insist on the truth in life."  

70-100 million visitors and exhibitions from 192 countries are expected at the event, opening May 1 and welcoming visitors for the next 6 months. An exclusive metro line has opened to service the event. Haibao, the official mascot of the 2010 Expo, carefully designed to resemble the Chinese character for "person" (although actually resembling the blue-gel creatures of Crest Kids Toothpaste commercials you may remember from 1991), has filled toy store racks in plush and robot form. The city is undergoing a $45 billion USD makeover to prepare.  

Interestingly, the theme of the US pavilion at the Expo is "Rising to the Challenge";  Lets hope we make a good show of doing just that.

A few weeks after the announcement that some of America’s most well-known diplomats would be building a permanent residence in Shanghai, one of the lesser known U.S. players made a trip across the Pacific.  Or, that is at least what you would believe if you were a Chinese resident following the news last night.  Apparently in terms of overall newsworthiness, President Obama visiting China and having a town hall discussion with Chinese students isn’t much of a story.  Maybe that’s because the media knew that the so-called ‘students’ were hand-picked for their brand loyalty, and that the most interesting question of the evening, regarding internet censorship, would come from the U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman.  And even though the Chinese Internet portal Netease found the story compelling for a brief period of time and posted Obama's answer to Huntsman's question, Netease must have felt the story lost its appeal after only 27 minutes because they consequently removed it. (More after the jump)
 

On his visit to Shanghai, President Obama defended internet and religious freedoms during a townhall forum with around 400 Shanghai students.  "These freedoms of expression and worship, of access to information and political participation, we believe are universal rights," the president said, referring to four rights curtailed in China.

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese government was at work to censor the President's anti-censorship message, blocking internet portals that streamed the event.  According to the Christian Science Monitor, "Chinese censors blocked Facebook and YouTube, limiting coverage to local TV and China's official news agency." To see the president's message, view the videos below: