China's Prosecutor-General Cao Jianming said Tuesday that 2,687 government officials were investigated last year for graft, malfeasance and infringement on people's rights, including four at the province or ministry level.

Cao Jianming, Prosecutor-General of the Supreme People's Procuratorare.

A total of 10,315 cases of commercial bribery were committed by government workers, involving more than 2.1 billion yuan, Cao said.

The figures cast concerns among Chinese lawmakers who demanded anti-corruption be prioritized for the sake of China's social stability amid the financial crisis.

Anti-corruption ranked the most concerned issue at the annual sessions of China's parliament, according to an online survey conducted by Xinhua.com and peoplesdaily.com.

"The Chinese people attached so much importance to the anti-corruption cause when we are coping with the financial meltdown, and why?" Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said during his two-hour chat with netizens on Feb. 28.

"Because in my opinion, economic development, social justice and a clean government are the three pillars of social stability," Wen said, quoting that a clean government was the most important among the three.

Wen's words were echoed by Chen Wanzhi, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC) and vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Chongqing Municipal Committee.

The financial crisis has already affected the Chinese people's wellbeing to different levels, leaving 7 million college graduates, 20 million migrant workers and hundreds of thousands of urban citizens jobless. All these could jeopardize the country's stability, Chen said.

"If the government does not seek to further crack down on corruption, which has been a lasting pain in China, at this point of time, its image among the masses could be seriously compromised, and the country's social stability shattered due to the lack of public support to the government," he said.

Li Changshun, an entrepreneur-turned deputy to the NPC from the eastern province of Shandong, also said, "The more challenges we face amid the global financial crisis, the more pressing it is to step up anti-corruption crackdown."

China in recent years has adopted a dual approach that combined both prevention and punishment to address the country's wide spread corruption.

A string of crooked senior officials have been investigated and punished in recent years, including former Shanghai Communist Party Chief Chen Liangyu and former director of the State Food and Drug Administration Zheng Xiaoyu.

Just five days before the NPC session started, Mi Fengjun, a senior legislator in northeastern Jilin Province, was dismissed from the national legislature for taking bribes.