Former US president Bill Clinton gives a speech at the Caijing Annual Conference in Beijing on November 18, 2013. Photo: CFP

When heads of state and government end their tenures, some choose to become speakers, consultants or lobbyists, cashing in notable incomes that are sometimes much more than their previous salaries.

And China has become one of their major destinations.

In December, former British prime minister Tony Blair traveled across China giving speeches and meeting officials and business tycoons.

As part of this tour, he appeared in Beijing along with Andrew Liveris, chairman, president and CEO of the US Dow Chemical Company, and visited Science and Technology Minister Wan Gang, China Petroleum and Chemical Corp chairman Fu Chengyu and China National Petroleum Corporation chairman Zhou Jiping, and discussed cooperation on clean energy.

It's unclear whether the Dow visit was entirely a coincidence. A 2012 report by the Financial Times alleged that Dow had paid Blair, or Tony Blair Associates (TBA), his private consulting company, for consultancy work.

These were just some of his appearances in China after he left Downing Street in June 2007. And he is not the only official to be involved in paid lectures and activities after their government life.

On November 18, former US president Bill Clinton made a keynote speech at the Caijing Annual Conference 2014 in Beijing, calling for more charity engagement of non-governmental organizations and for inequality to be reduced.

A day before on November 17, he appeared at an enterprise leaders summit in Guangzhou. A staff member from the public relations department of Caijing magazine said they paid Clinton for his presence but declined to reveal how much. An ifeng.com report said payments for Clinton's two speeches totaled at least $1 million.

Since leaving the White House in 2001, Clinton has made more than 500 speeches across the world and raked in as much as $106 million in speaking fees, said a May CNN report.

Clinton was reportedly paid $750,000 by the telecom giant Ericsson to address its employees in Hong Kong in November 2011. In the same month, he earned $550,000 from a speech given to Huatuo CEO Forum, a business conference in Shanghai.

Yu Mingyang, a professor of brand marketing at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said opening up and globalization has led to some Chinese enterprises favoring foreign speakers, especially retired leaders.

"Some big enterprises expect to obtain some useful guiding messages concerning government policy from these retired officials, who are believed to have access to relevant reliable sources," Yu told the Global Times.

However, these speeches are not always warmly welcomed.

A speech entitled "From Great to Excellent" given by Blair at a VIP banquet on November 6, 2007 in Dongguan, South China's Guangdong Province, was widely criticized as being "empty" and "money-sucking" by domestic media. The host, a leading property developer in Dongguan, was found to have paid Blair $300,000 for the three-hour visit to the city, which was equivalent to nearly his annual salary as prime minister.

Yu attributes this to organizers' vanity.

"I have studied most of the remarks or speeches made by these people and found that they are tactful but rarely have new stuff," Yu said, noting that the organizers or sponsors care much more about inviting influential celebrities than seeking valuable information.

But the appearance of retired foreign leaders in various conferences or negotiations still seems to be on the rise.

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder is noted for his promotion of German companies in China.

Under his mediation, Herrenknecht, a German manufacturer of tunnel boring machines, managed to get their products used in subway construction in Wuhan and Chengdu, according to China News Weekly.

In 2011, Schröder focused his deal-making efforts in Chongqing. In May of that year, a leading German chemical company announced that the municipality had approved its MDI (Methylene diphenyl diisocyanate) project in the city, the largest of its kind in the world, with an investment of 8 billion yuan ($1.32 billion).

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair speaks at the Sanya Forum held in Sanya, Hainan Province on December 14, 2013. Photo: CFP

'Exaggerated respect'



China is rising as a major power and able to afford high appearance fees, said John Ross, a former director of economic and business policy (or a vice mayor) in the city of London.

"There has also existed, in the past, an exaggerated respect for things which are foreign in China, which helps speakers gain such fees," Ross, now a senior fellow of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, told Global Times via e-mail.

Compared to the extremely high fees paid on the Western "speaker circuits," China is still a marginal player in terms of paying for retired foreign officials' appearances, he noted.

After leaving his position at the Mayor's Office in London in 2008, Ross became a visiting professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University from 2009. In June last year, he joined the Chongyang Institute.

Though occasionally approached by businesspeople for mediation or lobbyist work, he said he has declined all such proposals.

In Ross's opinion, deals between former politicians and private companies easily leave room for corruption.

"It is a similar effect as when former politicians or civil servants pass from their previous positions to private companies but with less rules regulating such transfers, as the latter are known to create significant risks for corruption," he said.

When commenting on the article, Ralph Benko, a former junior official in the Reagan administration, recalled the actions of former US president Harry S. Truman.

"I turned down all of those offers [of corporate positions at large salaries]. I knew that they were not interested in hiring Harry Truman, the person, but what they wanted to hire was the former President of the United States. I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize on the prestige and the dignity of the office of the Presidency," Truman said in his 1960 book Mr. Citizen.

In February 2012, the city government of Kashi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in Northwest China, signed an agreement with Tony Blair Associates(TBA), which pledged to attract international investment, technology and cooperation to the region.

Ling Zhiqing from the press office of the Kashi government told the Global Times that there was no deal behind the agreement and no progress has been made.

Interview requests to the TBA remained unanswered as of press time. On its website, TBA says it "is the umbrella organization for our commercial operations."

Quoting Kazakhstan activists, the Guardian said in a recent report that Blair's multimillion-pound two-year deal to advise the country's leadership failed to bring any progress in democracy.

Blair has re-invented himself in multiple roles, such as dealmaker, adviser and philanthropist. His companies and charities operate in more than 20 countries with financing from a tangle of private, corporate and government sources. Since 2007, Blair and his network of firms have earned over $90 million, Bloomberg reported.

However, both Blair and the office rejected accusations of seeking to make money from his former position.

"This notion that I want to be a billionaire with a yacht; I don't! I am never going to be part of the super-rich. I have no interest in that at all," Blair told Financial Times in a 2012 interview.

While facing such accusations, these celebrities have contributed to charity causes. The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, a not-for-profit organization established by Bill Clinton in 2001, offers aid projects in climate, health care and poverty in needy countries. Blair also presides over several foundations that seek to prevent religious prejudice, promote sports and tackle climate change.

Low profile



Though they are now private citizens, their frequent presence on the world stage indirectly helps expand the influence of their countries, professor Yu believes.

Compared with their Western peers, Chinese leaders appear much more low-profile after retirement, seldom making public appearances. Only in memorials of some notable Party members or scholars, major national conferences or celebratory activities will their names be covered by the media.

"That's largely the result of a different system," Yu said, adding that in Western countries like the US, when politicians leave office, their later remarks and actions have little to do with the government.

It's common for Western leaders to appear in commercial activities or take up corporate positions, despite calls to tighten restrictions on this practice.

Just before stepping down in late December 2000, Clinton revoked an executive order he signed on his first day in office in 1993 that barred senior officials from the White House and other agencies from lobbying former colleagues for five years.

"In China, the leaders are still in the system after retirement. Their residence and living costs are continually guaranteed, and their words and deeds are restricted," Yu noted.

Wu Yi, former Chinese vice premier, openly swore to make a "naked retirement" before leaving office in late 2007, which was widely applauded by the public. "I will retire next year after two sessions. After that, I will not hold a post in any official, semi-official or non-governmental organizations. I hope that you will completely forget about me," she said.

Due to a lack of transparency and poor law enforcement, risks of profiting from power after retirement are great in China, Yu said.

Following a nationwide outcry, two former provincial governors and a former deputy director with the State Administration of Taxation were forced to reject paid positions at heavy duty truck manufacturer Sinotruk Hong Kong Ltd in August last year.

In late October, China issued a new regulation preventing officials from working with businesses in their former jurisdictions or engaging in profit-making activities related to their former positions within three years of leaving public service.

Yu believes that the Chinese enthusiasm for foreign retired leaders will eventually fade as people get to know the nature of these "commercial stunts" and become more rational.

"As the system reforms, Chinese leaders will likely make more public appearances after retirement, exerting their personal influence on social advancement," he said.