Blair under attack for money-tour

Tony Blair

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair came under heavy fire from both Chinese and British media as the stories about his speakers' fees popped up, like here in The Guardian. For a twenty-minute speech in Dongguan Blair cashed in a US$ 500,000.
Typically those figures are kept confidential, but thanks to the Dongguang Tax office - who earned 40 percent as income tax and might have been in a party mood - this detail appeared in the Chinese media. Other speeches, both in Hong Kong and Beijing, might have brought in similar figures.
The Guardian quotes some very critical Chinese media:

China Youth Daily said the speech was full of pleasantries, cliches and platitudes about the importance of collaboration between government and business, education and the environment, but failed to provide any new insights.
"Is the country to become a market where international celebrities come digging for gold?" the paper asked. "We should exercise less ostentation and vanity. We need more genuinely fresh knowledge - especially when we are spending the taxpayers' pennies."

The fees might not come as a surprise for Mr. Blair's hosts, since they must have paid them before his arrival, but there is certainly a differences in tone between this visit and for example the also very costly visit by former US president Bill Clinton a few years ago.
Apart from a visit to a conference of e-commerce firm Alibaba in Hangzhou, most attention went to Mr. Clinton's support for the Aids orphans in Henan province, identifying his visit more as a humanitarian mission than as a way to earn loads of money. Blair's visit was even lacking the smell of charity and did not really contribute much to this country, was a much heard blame of the Chinese media.
Most of Mr. Clinton's revenues go anyway into his Clinton foundation and from his last trip to China perhaps even more as Mrs. Clinton did not report any income from her husbands trip to Hangzhou as she had to file her financial situation before she registered as a candidate for the upcoming presidential elections in the US.
Also, the atmosphere in China has been changing under this waiving banner of China's president Hu Jintao's "harmonious society". Making money at any costs is no longer done and goes very much against the current policies of the central government, explaining the fierce reaction of the government-controlled media.
Mr. Blair, his hosts and their advisers seemed to have missed this rather important change in China's political climate. The negative fall-out of this visit might well go beyond the now-closed Blair visit to China. Future visitors of his level will be scrutinized even more severely and potential hosts might actually refrain from inviting high-leveled celebrities because of the feared negative feelings it might cause.