China's Communist Party must "turn the knife inward" to eliminate problems of discipline, including corruption, President Xi Jinping said, a new call to hunt down corrupt officials and those who corrupt them.

Chinese President Xi Jinping dismissed internal divisions within the ruling Communist Party as unavoidable, while calling for greater efforts to instill discipline, according to newly disclosed remarks he made at an anti-graft meeting in January.

Xi has launched a sweeping anti-corruption campaign, in which over a million party officials, including two defence ministers, were prosecuted.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, who continues to crack the corruption whip on the ruling Communist Party and the military officials, asked the cadre to turn the knife inwards, stop whitewashing mistakes and carry the anti-graft campaign without any mercy.

In the past two years, two former defence ministers have been expelled from the Communist Party for “serious violations of discipline,” a term commonly used to refer to corruption.