Li was handed a giant red cheque by Wang Guosheng, governor of her home province of Hubei, as soon as she landed back from Melbourne on Monday.
The 31-year-old had already received prize money of $2.3m for winning the Australian Open – her second Grand Slam title.
Chinese Internet users, angry at the additional reward given by local officials, accused them of wasting taxpayers' money that could have been used to address the needs of the poor.
"The government and the party should stop spending money as they wish," said a poster on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo.
"The cash is taxpayers' and should be spent on people in need, not abused in a (political) charade," they added.
The official Xinhua news agency also weighed in, carrying a commentary on Wednesday that called the event "embarrassing" and "money-worshipping".
"A bonus from the government is by no means Li Na's most wanted reward after she won the Grand Slam title… perhaps only China's sports authorities value the power of money so much," said Xinhua.
It cited Xiao Huanyu, a sports professor in Shanghai, as saying: "The government deems sports achievement a kind of political achievement. Therefore it needed to hand out the bonus to 'show its face' even though Li Na's triumph had little to do with the government."
0 comments: