The Communist Party of China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) investigated a total of 68 provincial-level officials last year.
In 2014, 71,000 officials violated Party regulations nationwide, and more than 23,000 officials received administrative penalties, according to CCDI.
"Political discipline should be further enhanced and factions within the Party that are organized for group interests are absolutely not tolerated," said a statement released after the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.
Party leader and Chinese President Xi Jinping said that factionalism is a big problem within the Communist Party of China (CPC) and there should be zero tolerance of intra-Party cliques that pursue their own interest. He released the statement in a CCDI meeting in Jan. 2014.
Since the anti-graft campaign started in 2012, China has conducted regular inspections of 31 provincial-level regions as well as of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, exposing discipline violations and corruption, including severe corruption in Shanxi, the Global times reported.
Former head of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee Ling Jihua, who was put under CCDI investigation in late December, became part of the Shanxi clique after working in the province, the Xinhua News Agency said.
One of the major coal-producing regions in China is Shanxi. Seven of the province's top leaders were investigated, including Ling Jihua's brother Ling Zhengce, former vice chairman of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Some members of the clique have already been sentenced or probed for corruption, such as Liu Tienan, former deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission; and Du Shanxue, former vice governor of Shanxi, the magazine reported.
"To underline the importance of the crackdown on factionalism demonstrates the central authorities' determination in its anti-graft campaign," Gao Bo, deputy secretary-general of the China Anti-corruption Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
"This factionalism and systemic corruption is mainly a result of the centralization of power," Gao added