BEIJING - China has sentenced a former city vice-mayor to death for pocketing millions of yuan in bribes, some of which he lavished on a teenaged girlfriend, state media said on Wednesday.

Li Yushu was convicted on Tuesday by a court in the Sichuan province city of Leshan, 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of the provincial capital Chengdu, the semi-official China News Service said.

China recently has ratcheted up its bid to weed out rampant corruption, which President Jiang Zemin, also China's Communist Party chief, has frequently said risks undermining support for the party.

China News said Li took 8.93 million yuan ($1.08 million) in bribes related to road projects he oversaw in his previous job as Leshan's top transportation official.

It said the married Li spent more than two million yuan on a waitress he met in 1999 at a cafe in Chengdu, an ancient city known for its tea houses and rich poetic tradition.

The girl was 16 at the time -- 30 years younger than Li -- who initially told her he was a businessman from Singapore, the news service said.

Li bought the girl a 610,000 yuan Chengdu penthouse registered in her name and slipped her another 180,000 yuan to open a teahouse in the heart of town, which she managed at the age of 17, it said.

Premier Zhu Rongji and top government auditor Li Jinhua in the past week have emphasised the need to step up audits on Communist party and government officials.

China has executed a string of officials for corruption in the past few years. The highest-ranked was Cheng Kejie, former vice-chairman of the National People's Congress, China's parliament.

($1 = 8.276 yuan) Nampa-Reuters