Military to step up anti-graft campaign Xu Caihou, former vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission (CMC), confessed to taking bribes. [File photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

More than 200 senior People's Liberation Army officers have been reprimanded, demoted or removed from their posts for problems exposed by military auditors, PLA Daily reported on Thursday.

A total of 4,024 officers with the rank of lieutenant colonel or above, including 82 generals, have been the subject of scrutiny by PLA auditors since January 2013, the newspaper said.

Of these, 21 were removed from their posts, 144 were demoted and 77 reprimanded and asked to correct the problems that were discovered, the report said.

It added that another 61 officers were given poor evaluations because their units were found to have many financial problems.

More than 820 such problems at 180 military units were uncovered by auditors, who focused on infrastructure construction projects and the development of major weapons.

Auditors also found 216 clues that led to suspected corruption or other misconducts. They reported these to PLA disciplinary inspectors or prosecutors, resulting in the formal investigation of more than 60 officers and internal punishment for nearly 160 service members.

The number of clues uncovered by PLA auditors last year was more than the total reported in the three decades before 2014.

Auditors prevented as much as 12.1 billion yuan ($1.9 billion) in military funds from being misused or wasted.

About 12 million yuan distributed irregularly to officers as subsidies was recovered.