Chinese authorities have punished 20 officials and former village leaders after a community in southern China held mass protests over land disputes that drove out local officials.

The official Xinhua news agency said the former Communist party chief of Wukan village in Guangdong province and the former head of the village committee were expelled from the ruling party and ordered to return nearly $45,000 (£28,000) in what it described as illegal gains.

Six other former village officials and a dozen higher-level officials were also punished, but no details were provided.

Protests in Wukan last year flared into violence in which villagers smashed a police station and cars. After key activists were detained in December, the villagers drove out officials and barricaded themselves in for 10 days and held boisterous rallies.

The protests ended after provincial officials intervened and ceded to some demands.

Xinhua said authorities found that the village's former officials had been involved in illegal transfers of land-use rights, embezzling property that was collectively owned, accepting bribes and rigging village elections.

In March, two of the protest leaders were elected to run the village in a much-watched election that reformers hoped would promote democracy as a way to settle many of the myriad disputes besetting China.

Many experts, however, said it's far too soon to say if political leaders will summon the will to replicate Wukan's experience elsewhere.