The Denmark Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010 received its millionth visitor on Saturday.

Drip by drip, the full story is emerging of last December's global diplomatic debacle in Copenhagen, when instead of setting the world on a new low carbon path and tackling climate change, 130 world leaders ended up with a weak deal and no prospect of a binding agreement for another 18 months.

Plucked from its rock in Copenhagen harbour for the first time in 96 years, the bronze nude will sit in a pond at the centre of the Danish pavilion during the six-month run of the World Expo, which opens on Saturday.

Many countries are willing to go that extra mile to impress the Chinese, but the Danes may have topped them all. On Sunday, Denmark unveiled its well-known statue of the Little Mermaid at the unofficial opening ceremony for its Shanghai Expo pavilion.

THE Smurfs, the Little Mermaid, Bollywood stars, tenor Andrea Bocelli and the acrobats of Cirque du Soleil are part of a colourful diplomatic offensive to win Chinese hearts at this year's World Expo.

The Little Mermaid statue, in memory of fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen, is being shipped to Shanghai where it will be on display in the Danish pavilion at Expo 2010.

World fairs are a good laboratory for experimenting with architecture and the upcoming expo in China is no exception. Thanks to computer-aided design, pavilions that resemble giant dandelions and baskets are fabulous buildings that 'look like they can't be built.'