Tony Blair has come under attack from the Chinese media after he was allegedly paid $500,000 (£237,000) for a three-hour trip to a luxury Chinese housing estate.

Chinese state press questioned whether the former Prime Minister was worth the bumper pay cheque for his whirlwind visit, and claimed that he produced little more than clichés.

Mr Blair's spokesman in the UK has however hit back that it was "none of your business" how much the former Premier got paid.

The controversial visit to Dongguan in China’s southern province of Guangdong happened on Tuesday. Mr Blair stopped at a luxury villa compound built by Guangda Group, a property development company which sponsored his trip, and made a speech.

On top of his payout the company also offered to give him one of the houses worth 38 million yuan (£2.4 million), the Guangzhou Daily reported, condemning the episode as an ostentatious show of extravagance.

The newspaper did not say whether he accepted the villa, and noted that the cash payment would have been reduced to $330,000 (£156,000) after tax. It continued that Mr Blair’s Dongguan stop was just one of his "money-raking" trips in Chinese cities, including Beijing and Hong Kong.

On Monday Mr Blair gave a speech in Hong Kong at a lunch hosted by Merrill Lynch, the financial services firm which is one of the world's biggest investment banks, before heading to engagements in the booming cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan on the Chinese mainland.

Mr Blair seems to be aware of the increasingly hostile tone of press coverage of his China trip. Yesterday reporters were barred from the hall when Mr Blair appeared at a business forum in China. The journalists were allowed to watch his speech via a video link, but transmission was cut when the question and answer session started. No explanation was given.

Guangzhou Daily's criticisms were echoed in the China Youth Daily, which is affiliated to the Communist Party’s Youth League, which said in a commentary that Mr Blair's speech at Dongguan was full of pleasantries, and clichés on collaboration between the government and business, education, and environmental protection, but did not offer any new insight.

"Like reports made by some local officials, there was nothing new in his views... so was the speech worth the large sums of money paid out by local officials and businesses?" the commentary questioned.

It said China was quickly becoming a "gold-digging" market for international celebrities and it was now time to exercise some discernment.

"We should exercise less ostentatiousness and vanity... learn more new and genuine knowledge - especially when we are using even a penny of taxpayers’ money."

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