A former vice mayor of South China's Shenzhen City has been expelled from the Communist Party of China (CPC) for corruption, authorities said on March 18, 2013.

Liang Daoxing, who was vice mayor of Shenzhen from 2002 to early 2009,took bribes in return for seeking benefits for the bribers, said the Guangdong Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC.

Liang's case was transferred to judicial authorities, and an investigation into the former vice mayor began in late 2012.

China's newly-elected President Xi Jinping on Sunday pledged an anti-corruption drive, saying, "We must resolutely reject formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance, and fight corruption and other misconduct in all manifestations."

"We must always preserve the political integrity of Communists and unswervingly strive for the cause of the Party and the people," Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, told almost 3,000 legislators at the close of the annual session of the national legislature.