China's police chief has vowed to dismiss unqualified policemen in a bid to curb corruption, malpractice, and other misbehavior among the country's law enforcers.

More than 10,000 policemen who failed a national quality examination and have been suspended from their posts are now preparing for a makeup exam. "If they fail again, they will be fired," said Jia Chunwang, minister of public security.

About 930,000 cops of the 1.5-million-strong police force have passed the examination which was introduced last year.

This is one of the immediate measures Chinese police officers have taken to improve the overall quality and the image of the policemen, an image that has been somewhat tarnished by offenders in recent years, Jia said.

At today's meeting of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, the country's top legislature, Jia admitted that some problems inside the police "have turned serious and aroused lots of complaints from the public."

The abuse of power, bribery, inquisition by torture, and some police officers' unconcern and even crude attitude toward those who ask their help have all been widely criticized, he acknowledged.

"We have decided to tackle the problems and greatly improve the image of the police in the next three years," Jia said while reporting to the lawmakers on the work of police departments.

In fact, about 11,000 police offenders were punished last year, among whom 1,380 were found to be criminally responsible and 2,272 were fired.

As a result of nationwide investigations of police corruption, the number of disclosed cases dropped significantly in the first half of this year, compared with the same period last year, Jia said.

The minister also affirmed police contributions to stability of the society, saying that more than 5,000 policemen have died in the line of duty and some 100,000 were injured in the past two decades.

The Public Security Ministry plans to improve the national systems of examination and appraisal for police officers, which will help form a competitive mechanism for a better quality of the police.

More effective systems of supervision will also be introduced to plug loopholes which often lead to corruption, Jia added.