The head of China Telecom, one of the nation's big three telecoms firms, is under investigation for "severe disciplinary violations", the government said Sunday, the latest high-profile target in a corruption crackdown.

News of the probe into Chang Xiaobing was given in a statement on the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the watchdog of the ruling Communist Party.

The term is normally a euphemism for graft.

Chang had been "taken away", according to an article in the respected business magazine Caijing, adding that he disappeared just days before a meeting of the state-owned company planned for December 28.

In August Beijing announced it would shift Chang from his position as chairman and party secretary of China's second largest telecoms provider China Unicom to China Telecom.

The move provoked rumours of an imminent merger between the two industry leaders and the third major player, China Mobile.

In April the state news agency Xinhua reported that China was considering merging scores of its biggest state-owned companies to create around 40 national champions from the existing 111.

Authorities have been pursuing a hard-hitting campaign against allegedly crooked officials since President Xi Jinping took office in 2013, a crusade that some experts have called a political purge.

Several high-profile business leaders have been caught up in the web of graft investigations after authorities pledged they would turn their efforts to the state-owned enterprise system, a bulwark of graft that has resisted multiple attempts at reform.

Beijing announced it had begun investigations into the country's telecom industry earlier this year, while Chang was still at China Unicom.

After conducting an internal graft investigation, the Communist Party can punish alleged offenders internally or expel them and pass them on to courts for trial, where conviction is virtually guaranteed.