Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng said Tuesday that change in his country was "inevitable" but should be the work of the Chinese themselves rather than be imposed from the outside.

"China will undergo a transformation, this is inevitable and in fact this has already begun," said Chen, a blind self-taught lawyer who dramatically escaped house arrest last year.

"We cannot wait for democracy, freedom and equality to come from the outside," he told the Oslo Freedom Forum, an annual gathering of rights activists.

Chen, 41, achieved international prominence for his fight against the harsh measures used to enforce the one-child policy in his country.

Sentenced to four years in prison and placed under house arrest, he fled his village last year and took refuge in the US embassy in Beijing.

After protracted negotiations between China and the United States, he was finally allowed to leave for New York, where he has since lived with his family.

Reading from a statement written in braille, Chen told his audience in Oslo that relatives remaining in China were facing persecution because of his activities and accused Beijing of not living up to its promise to ensure the safety of his family.

He pointed out that more than 200,000 protests were recorded in China every year, while there was also growing mobilisation of dissenting voices on the Internet.

"There is nothing to fear from a washed-up ruling power that has lost its moral, ethical and legal foundations," he said.

"The idea that civil society's human rights values are not suitable for China is purely a myth that is propagated by the authoritarian regime and its attempt to hold on to power."

After assuming power in March, Chinese President Xi Jinping said he wanted "to continue to fight for the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics and achieve the dream of a great revival of the Chinese nation".

China official in corruption probe sacked: Xinhua
Beijing (AFP) May 14, 2013 - China's ruling Communist Party has sacked a top government official, state media reported Tuesday, following a probe into graft allegations that emerged on the Internet.

Liu Tienan, deputy director of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), was dismissed, the official Xinhua news agency said quoting a statement from the ruling Communist Party's Organisation Department.

Citing the statement, Xinhua said the decision to fire him "was made because of Liu's suspected involvement in serious disciplinary violations", a euphemism for corruption in China.

Besides his position as deputy director, Liu is also a member of a senior group of Party officials at the NDRC. Xinhua did not specify from which post he was dismissed, but Liu was no longer listed as deputy director on the NDRC's website.

State media reported Sunday that Liu, 58, was being investigated by the Communist Party organ tasked with probing corruption and other malpractice by party members.

Allegations against Liu, who was party chief of China's National Energy Administration until March, surfaced when Luo Changping, a journalist at the influential business magazine Caijing, accused him of improper business dealings late last year.

Luo claimed the official used his position to enrich family members. The energy agency denied those allegations at the time.

China's newly-installed leaders have made tackling corruption a key policy, with President Xi Jinping saying there would be "no leniency" for wrongdoing.

Since his promotion after the Communist Party Congress last November, a range of officials have been exposed, including a police chief who was investigated for allegedly keeping twins as mistresses and giving one a local government job.

The mayor of Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, was pictured apparently wearing a range of expensive watches, and an official in the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing was sacked after a video of him having sex with a mistress spread online.

Chinese citizens have taken to Internet forums such as Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like service, in recent years to expose wrongdoing and to vent their anger over corruption.