Nearly 5,000 higher-level Chinese officials punished since Nov. 2007

BEIJING, Dec. 26 (Chinese media) -- A disciplinary official said Friday that 4,960

Chinese officials above the county head level were punished during the year

ended in November.

The officials were involved in corruption, bribery, acting against the

public interest and other breaches of discipline or the law, Gan Yisheng, deputy

head of the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline

Inspection, told a press conference. Of the total, 801 were prosecuted, he said.

Gan said discipline inspection and supervision departments at various

levels settled 144,000 cases that led to penalties for 151,000 officials.

Losses of 6.09 billion yuan (889.6 million U.S. dollars) were recovered

through anti-corruption efforts, he added.

The official vowed to step up anti-graft efforts and "win trust from the

people with actual results."

He said cases implicating officials above the county head level and those

concerning violations of political discipline, commercial bribery, dereliction

of duty and serious infringement of public interest would be severely dealt

with.

Gan named several prominent figures who had been penalized for corruption,

including former Beijing vice mayor Liu Zhihua and Chen Tonghai, former general

manager of the China Petroleum and Chemical Group (Sinopec), one of the

country's largest state companies.

Liu, 59, was given in October a death penalty with a two-year reprieve for

taking bribes of about 6.97 million yuan (1.02 million U.S. dollars).

Chen, also the Sinopec Party chief, was expelled from the Communist Party

of China (CPC) in January and charged with taking bribes to help others make

unlawful profits.

"Serious corruption cases like those of Liu and Chen exposed the loopholes

in China's legal systems," said Huang Zongliang, a professor of politics from

Peking University.

He urged beefed up supervision from the government and the general public

to curb corruptions.

The case involving Huang Songyou, former vice president of the Supreme

People's Court, was still "under investigation", Gan said.

He declined to give more information but promised to announce the result

after the probe was completed.

Huang was removed from his post on Oct. 28 by Chinese lawmakers at a

bi-monthly session.

The reason for his removal was not made public.

Huang, now 51, is a native of south China's Guangdong Province. He became

vice president of the Supreme People's Court in 2002.

Responding to questions concerning officials refusing to come back from

overseas tours, Yao Zengke, vice minister of supervision, told the press

conference that the government would step up the supervision of officials'

passports and their departures outside the country.

A party official,Yang Xianghong, in east China's Zhejiang Province

overstayed a 12-day European tour in September on claims that he had to stay

there for medical treatment. The incident was highly publicized.

Yao added that the establishment of a screening process and pre-warning

mechanisms against corrupt officials fleeing overseas was also in deliberation.