China's top discipline watchdog said Tuesday that 85,000 officials had been punished during the first quarter of 2017, including 14 at the provincial level, as part of the country's sweeping anti-graft campaign.
Aside from the 14 officials, more than 400 others on the prefecture level and more than 3,500 on the county level were punished, according to Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
Some 12,000 were dismissed for serious discipline violations, while over 10,000 were investigated for violations of laws and disciplines, CCDI said.
In a separate article published on Tuesday, CCDI said many corrupt officials have extravagant tastes, with some believing it is "elegant" to drink Lafite, China's most popular premium wine brand, which costs around 40,000 yuan ($5,810) a bottle, or Moutai, the top Chinese liquor, which costs over 1,000 yuan a bottle. Some officials have been known to consume up to 300,000 yuan worth of Moutai in one sitting.
More than 1 million people have been punished for violating disciplines of the CPC and the government since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
