China has appointed a top official of the ruling party's propaganda department as president of the Xinhua news agency, the key mouthpiece of the Communist state.

The appointment of Cai Mingzhao, a vice director of the propaganda department, is the latest of several replacements in the party's key information and media agencies over the past year.

Cai, 59, replaced Li Congjun, who turned 65 in October and reached the age limit for ministerial-level posts, the agency said in a statement on Wednesday.

Cai is "politically sober and firm, keeps an appropriate grasp in guiding public opinion and conscientiously aligns himself with the party's central committee", the statement quoted Pan Ligang, a deputy head of the party's Organisation Department, as saying.

Cai was previously head of the information office of the State Council, China's cabinet.

He worked for Xinhua for 23 years from 1978, reports said, first as a journalist and later promoted to managerial level.

On Sunday, Luo Shugang, a vice director of the Propaganda Department, took over from Cai Wu as culture minister.

In April, Yang Zhenwu was appointed the new president of the People's Daily, the party's flagship newspaper.

Xinhua was founded in 1931 and started using its current name in 1937. It is headquartered in Beijing and has more than 180 outlets overseas, according to the agency's website.

The agency has a virtual monopoly on the distribution of information for the Chinese domestic market.

China assistant foreign minister sacked amid graft probe
Beijing (AFP) Jan 02, 2015 - A Chinese assistant foreign minister has been dismissed from his post and placed under investigation, Beijing said Friday, amid a much-publicised anti-corruption campaign.

Zhang Kunsheng, one of four officials with the title, was "suspected of violating discipline", the foreign ministry said in a brief post on its website, using a phrase often employed as a euphemism for corruption.

It was not clear who was conducting the investigation or exactly what Zhang was alleged to have done.

Zhang previously made headlines for giving a US diplomat a public dressing-down in 2012 over Washington's criticism of a Chinese military garrison in the South China Sea.

"We urge the US side to correct its mistaken ways, respect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Zhang told the US embassy's then-deputy chief of mission Robert Wang.

Zhang's rise up the ranks of China's foreign ministry, which he joined in the 1980s, coincided with the growth of Beijing's diplomatic influence alongside its booming economy.

His official globetrotting has in recent years encompassed events in Brazil, the Netherlands and the US, according to the foreign ministry.

The ministry's website showed that Zhang's role as head of the ministry's protocol department, which oversees diplomatic ceremonies, has been temporarily taken up by ministry spokesman Qin Gang.

Zhang's dismissal comes as China's President Xi Jinping presses a much-publicised anti-graft campaign, which has snared several high-profile politicians.

It also follows the mysterious disappearance of China's ambassador to Iceland amid reports he had allegedly spied for Japan.

A Chinese state-run newspaper urged Beijing to say whether envoy Ma Jisheng was a spy after he left Iceland mysteriously in January 2014, with Beijing only telling Reykjavik that he was unable to return for "personal reasons".

China's embassy website at the time contained a link titled "CV of Ambassador", but the resulting page was blank. Beijing has refused to comment on Ma's status.