China has jailed for 15 years one of the country's most senior financial officials ever to be tried for corruption.

Top banker Zhu Xiaohua escaped the death sentence because he admitted to taking bribes which the prosecutors were not aware of, state media reported.

Zhu, the former head of the state-run Everbright Group which controls China's sixth-largest commercial bank, was found guilty of taking bribes totalling more than 4 million yuan ($480,000), Xinhua news agency said.

Several senior officials have been sacked or jailed in recent weeks as the Communist Party seeks to make a stand against corruption ahead of its Congress next month, where the country's leadership is set to be overhauled.

Opinion polls regularly show that official corruption is the number one concern of China's public.

Disgraced protege

Zhu had pleaded not guilty when his trial began in August, claiming that overwork had affected his memory.

He stepped down from his post at Everbright in 1999 and before his trial he was stripped of his Communist Party membership for what Xinhua termed "absolutely vile" crimes.

He is one of three proteges of the Chinese Premier, Zhu Rhonghi - who has been at the forefront of the Party's crackdown on corruption - to fall from grace.

Li Fuxiang, former chief foreign exchange regulator, died after falling from a hospital building in 2000. It was speculated that he was under investigation.

And Wang Xuebing was sacked in January from his job as head of the China Construction Bank over controversial loans he made while head of Bank of China several years ago.