China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has launched new recruitment checks to prevent ineligible recruits bribing their way into the armed services.

The PLA has issued a circular warning recruitment personnel of "severe" penalties if they are caught taking bribes.

The PLA's General Staff Department, General Political Department, and the Commission for Discipline Inspection have ordered recruitment personnel to sign an eight-clause pledge to prevent corruption.

The circular says the whole process of the recruitment will be made transparent and supervised by senior echelons of the Army and civilian administrations.

Recruitment departments at all levels must publish their addresses and telephone numbers to receive complaints from the public.

New recruits will undergo secondary health checks and other inspections to weed out those who are ineligible, who will be sent back to their hometowns, and those who have accepted the ineligible will be investigated and punished.

PLA recruitment is conducted in winter evert year. But a small number of ineligible youngsters find access to the Army through illegal means like bribing officers involved in recruitment.

Normally, people who are qualified for the military recruitment must be healthy, have clean criminal records and be within the age limit of 18-22 years.

In addition to the PLA, China also has the Chinese People's Armed Police (PAP) for domestic security. The PAP carries out its annual recruitment simultaneously with the PLA and under the leadership of the PLA.

(Xinhua News Agency November 12, 2007)