A senior Chinese official says there's been a twenty-one percent increase in crime in the first half of this year, despite a government campaign.

Cao Zhi, who's the deputy chairman of the Chinese parliament, said there'd been an upsurge of crimes that the Communist Party once claimed to have eradicated, such as gambling and prostitution, as well as a rise in gang-related juvenile crime.

Mr Cao told senior politicians the solution lay in more thorough policing and in maintaining tough penalties.

Correspoondents say thousands of people are executed each year; the official media said seventeen drug smugglers in Beijing and Shanghai were put to death yesterday immediately after sentencing.