Dissident writer Liao Yiwu slams Chinese politicians’ ‘dirty wealth’

Chinese dissident writer Liao Yiwu accused China’s political elite of accumulating “dirty wealth” on Friday (HK time), saying it had turned his country into “one of the biggest landfills in the world”.

“There is wealth in China that only belongs to the powerful political class, that is the truth,” Liao told a news conference at the International Book Fair of Guadalajara in western Mexico.

“It is a dirty wealth, that is why I think that China has become one of the biggest landfills in the world,” said the author, also known as Lao Wei.

While China has experienced “many changes” and established trade ties with the West, the country’s economic development “has not affected” the whole population.

Liao gave the example of the sale of new apartments in a building in his native Sichuan province.

“An ordinary and normal person would have to have worked 100 years to be able to buy just the bathroom of one of these apartments,” he said.

Liao, who was escorted by municipal security guards, said the Chinese government had asked the fair’s organisers to withdraw his invitation,