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Wedding of the year?

DAN-CHYI CHUA

This is the type of high-profile romance Hong Kong tabloids revel in. It is also the worst kind of relationship for eager relatives wanting to gain from the union – an on-and-off-and-then-on-and-maybe-off-again one.

The billion-yuan question: are China and Disney coming together to build a theme park in Shanghai?

shangai pearl tower

Some of the local villagers simply can't wait for the government to evict them from their homes. "Next June," one predicted optimistically.

Such is the pragmatism that exists sometimes in the Chinese psyche. Never mind the ancestral home, think of the compensation that will come from the state. Others are looking to the day when the arrival of a Disneyland in the Pudong area will skyrocket the value of their properties by quite a few-fold.

Are they counting the chickens in their backyard before they are even hatched? Shanghai has been watching the possible deal since its then-mayor Zhu Rongji visited the Magic Kingdom in 1990 with the intention of setting up a match. Eighteen years have passed, Zhu has added "Governor, Central Bank",  "Vice Premier, China" and "Prime Minister of China" to his resume, and still, no deal.