Zhou Qiang, president of China's Supreme People's Court (SPC), delivers a report on the SPC's work at the third plenary meeting of the third session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 12, 2015. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, March 12 -- A total of 712 people were sentenced in China last year for instigating secessionist activities or participating in violent terrorist attacks, up 13.3 percent year on year, according to a work report of the Supreme People's Court Thursday.

Those convicted were involved in 558 cases, up 14.8 percent, Chief Justice Zhou Qiang said in the work report delivered at the annual session of the national legislature.

Graphs included in the report showed that the country saw a 40.7-percent rise in the number of criminal cases that involved instigation of secessionist activities in 2014, but did not provide further details.

Overall, courts in China concluded some 1.02 million first trials in criminal cases last year and convicted 1.18 million people, up 7.2 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively.

"We will actively participate in the fight against terrorism and secessionism, severely punish violent terrorist crimes according to the law, and severely punish all types of crimes that gravely endanger the safety of the people," Zhou said.

"We will resolutely safeguard national security, ethnic unity and social stability," he said.

Violence and terrorism have been on the rise in China over recent years, with the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region suffering the most.

An assault on a market in Xinjiang's regional capital Urumqi on May 22 last year killed more than 30 people and injured 94 others, prompting a year-long campaign against terrorism.

Terrorist attacks have also spread to other parts of the country. Three people were killed and 39 others injured when a sports utility vehicle plowed into crowds near Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing on Oct. 28, 2013.

On March 1 last year, knife-wielding assailants killed a total of 31 people and injured 141 others at a train station in Yunnan' s provincial capital Kunming.

The chief justice noted Thursday that courts have meted out harsh punishments to the suspects of the Tiananmen and Kunming attacks according to the law.

A Xinjiang court in June last year sentenced three people to death and five others to jail terms ranging from five years to life over the Tiananmen terror attack.

In September, a Kunming court sentenced three men to death over the train station attack. Another woman was sentenced to life in prison.