Discipline authorities received 1.32 million reports of suspected graft and punished 210,000 people in the first half of this year, according to the country's top discipline watchdog, with reports up by 9.5 percent and punishments up 29 percent year-on-year.

A total of 256,000 cases were officially filed for probe from January to June, compared with 193,000 during the same period last year, said Yang Xiaodu, minister of supervision and deputy head of the Communist Party of China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

"We're are keeping high pressure against graft ... and the strict governance of the Party is always ongoing," he was quoted on Tuesday as saying by People's Daily, the official newspaper of the CPC.