Mario Vargas Llosa criticizes dictatorships on his tour of China

"Dictatorial and authoritarian governments corrupt society" the author stressed.

"Politics should not be left only in the hands of politicians" emphasized the Peruvian Nobel Laureate at Shanghai International Studies University during his nine-day academic tour of China.

"Every single citizen should participate in the political life of his time. And from that participation the best choices can result," Mario Vargas said to Spanish language students.

Not referring to China directly, the writer also mentioned his 1969 novel "Conversation in the Cathedral" where he showed "how a dictatorial and authoritarian government corrupts all the society and effectively poisons the less political activities and that are further from politics, corrupting and degrading them".

Reports on the writer's speeches and visits mainly highlighted his feelings about how disruptive interviews and meetings with media representative had become since he became the Nobel Prize winner.

Mario Vargas Llosa has been quite unpopular with the Chinese government since he expressed his support for Liu Xiaobo – a jailed Nobel Prize-winner. The author called the Laureate "a Chinese fighter, who is a champion of democracy in his country". The Chinese laureate was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment in 2009 on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power".

On June 14, Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded with a title of honorary professor.