China's top prosecutors have issued new regulations spelling out the elements of torture in an effort to stop police bureaus across the country from beating confessions out of crime suspects.

The new rules were handed down yesterday by the Supreme People's Procuratorate as part of a larger package of reforms designed to combat abuse of power by government officials.

SPP Vice President Wang Zhenchuan said China previously lacked detailed standards to determine if officials were abusing their authority.

"The new regulations detail circumstances in which officials can be considered to be abusing their power," Wang said.

The previous rules, for example, prohibited law enforcement and judicial officers from using "brutal means" to extract confessions. Torture was defined as actions causing "serious results."

But prosecutors had no practical guidelines for interpreting those phrases.

The new rules prohibit extracting confessions through torture, collecting evidence by violent means and abusing detainees.

More important, they detail criteria for what constitutes torture, including beating, binding, freezing, starving, exposure to severe weather, inflicting major injuries and ordering others to use those means.

"The human rights of criminal suspects will be better protected with these regulations," Wang said.

He added that the new regulations will also help prosecutors define other offenses that constitute official abuse of power.

The offenses, which total 42, include:

divulging state secrets;

releasing detainees without proper authority;

abusing authority in company registration and establishment;

failing to properly collect taxes;

illegally issuing logging and tree-felling permits;

selling land-use rights below value;

improperly recruiting public servants;

and aiding and abetting fugitives.

Also yesterday, state prosecutors disclosed that around 8,000 officials were being investigated for abuse of office allegations, most of which were economic in nature.