China's Communist rulers declared Thursday that the country would embrace the "rule of law with Chinese characteristics", official media reported after a key party meeting touted as heralding legal reform.

More than 360 full and reserve members of the party's Central Committee gathered in Beijing this week for the highly-anticipated meeting, known as the Fourth Plenum.

China's ruling party had cast the conclave as a pivotal moment for reform of the country's legal system, and announced in July that the theme of the meeting would be "rule of law".

But experts caution that in China the phrase refers to a greater centralisation of control by the ruling party rather than a separation of powers, and had predicted the meeting would tighten the authorities' grip.

The communique issued at the gathering's close described the party's intent as a legal system serving "the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics", the official news agency Xinhua said.

China will ensure the Communist Party's leadership is achieving the goal, it added, saying the meeting had "set a blueprint for rule of law in the world's second-largest economy".

The gathering also expelled from the party five high-ranking officials, several of them senior allies of fallen former security chief Zhou Yongkang, and a People's Liberation Army general, Xinhua said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed rows of cadres seated inside a hall decorated with large Chinese flags, and the Communist anthem the Internationale played, state broadcaster China Central Television's evening news broadcast showed.

- Officials 'purged' -

The expulsion of the five civilian officials had been hinted at in state media ahead of the summit.

They were former vice minister of public security Li Dongsheng; former top regulator of state-owned enterprises Jiang Jiemin; former China National Petroleum Corporation manager Wang Yongchun; former Sichuan province party chief Li Chuncheng; and Guangzhou party secretary Wan Qingliang.

All but Wan are close allies of Zhou, the powerful former domestic security tsar who fell to Chinese President Xi Jinping's much-publicised anti-corruption campaign.

Also expelled was Yang Jinshan, a general who was deputy commander of the PLA's Chengdu Military Area Command in southwest China.

Kerry Brown, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Sydney, said earlier that the far-reaching campaign had shown the party views endemic graft as "a political issue" as well as a moral one.

"The party, in a time of austerity, cannot tolerate this kind of political and economic inefficiency," he said, describing expelled officials as having been "purged" from the ranks of the ruling elite.

The party's internal watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), will hold its own fourth plenum on Saturday, Xinhua said, at which it is expected to take action against several disgraced officials including Zhou.

China under Xi is also in the midst of a campaign against dissent that rights groups have called the harshest such crackdown in decades.

Hundreds of lawyers, scholars, journalists and activists have been rounded up and authorities have taken increasing steps to penalise citizens who have criticised the party via online media.

Last month 81-year-old writer and longtime Communist Party critic Tie Liu, whose real name is Huang Zerong, was taken away by Beijing police.

Hours before the plenum's conclusion, Beijing-based rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan wrote on Twitter that the writer had been arrested "on suspicion of running an illegal business and for the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble", according to a notification given to his family.

Tie spent more than 20 years in labour camps after he criticised Mao Zedong, founding father of the People's Republic, as a young journalist before being rehabilitated in 1980.

UN watchdog faults Hong Kong on reforms
Geneva (AFP) Oct 23, 2014 - A United Nations rights watchdog on Thursday pressed Hong Kong to enact democratic reforms, saying moves so far fell short of what was needed.

Amid weeks of pro-democracy protests in the semi-autonomous Chinese city, the UN Human Rights Committee said Hong Kong had failed to properly heed its calls for genuine change.

"We have received a response, but from the response it appears that no actions have been taken that implement our recommendation," said committee member Cornelis Flinterman, a Dutch human rights expert.

The committee has no power to sanction governments but its rulings carry moral weight. The body oversees global rules on civil and political rights, and submits governments to regular reviews.

Hong Kong's turn came in 2013, when the committee urged it to "take all necessary measures to implement universal and equal suffrage" and gave it a year to report back.

Hong Kong told the committee that it could grant equal voting rights in time for its 2017 chief executive elections and for the 2020 elections to its legislative council.

- 'Lack of a clear plan' -

But the UN panel criticised the "lack of a clear plan to institute universal suffrage and to ensure the right of all persons to vote and to stand for election without unreasonable limitations".

Hopes for genuine democracy in the former British colony were dashed in August when China ruled that candidates for the 2017 election would be chosen by a pro-Beijing committee.

The vote will mark the first direct election for the post of Hong Kong chief executive, and activists want the public to have the right to nominate candidates.

They claim vetting by a loyalist committee will create a "fake democracy", with only pro-Beijing candidates able to run, and have taken to the streets of the Asian financial and trading hub.

Law Yuk Kai, head of the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, hailed the UN panel's stance.

"I hope the message will be clear to the Hong Kong government that the world is watching," he told reporters in Geneva.

"Hong Kong's genie is out of the bottle. It's very difficult to put it back," he said.

The activists also want fully-free elections to the legislative council.

Under a system brought in by Britain in 1991, seven years before the city was returned to China, only half of its members are elected freely.

Hong Kong Democratic Party chair Emily Lau, a councillor since 1991, blamed Britain for failing to allow sweeping reforms when it was in charge and urged London to be more vocal in the crisis.

"We understand that many people want to do business with China, and they are afraid to upset Beijing. But many people also believe in democracy and human rights," she told reporters in Geneva.

The city's Beijing-backed leaders have been trying to defuse the mass protests and held their first meetings with student leaders on Tuesday.

But the students have accused the government of failing to make any meaningful offers to end weeks of unrest.

The negotiations have been seen as the only way to end nearly a month of protests without a police crackdown or further violence.

"It's a touch and go situation," said Lau. "The whole world is watching Hong Kong."

If talks are abandoned, many fear a return to the trouble seen last week when dozens were injured after demonstrators battled police as they tried to clear barriers.

There have also been confrontations between protesters and residents fed up with the blockades of several main roads.

Polls however have shown support for the democracy movement, also known as the "umbrella movement", rising from 31 percent to almost 38 percent in recent weeks.