Liu was accused of accepting bribes totalling more
than 64m yuan ($10m; £6m) over 25 years.
Prosecutors said he awarded government rail
contracts in return for bribes.
Liu is the most high-profile official to be tried and
found guilty of corruption since Xi Jinping became
China's leader earlier this year.
Mr Xi has called for a crackdown on corruption,
vowing to tackle it from the powerful "tigers" at the
top to the "flies" at the bottom of the Communist
Party.
China's railways ministry, once a powerful
department, was disbanded in March.
It had been criticised for a series of safety scandals,
and faced allegations of fraud which were uncovered
by government audits.
'Malpractice'
Liu was convicted by a court in the capital Beijing on
Monday, state-run Xinhua news agency said.
He was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve,
deprived of his political rights for life and jailed for 10
years, Xinhua said, quoting the court verdict. His
personal property will also be confiscated.
Despite his sentence, he is not expected to face the
death penalty - suspended death sentences are
normally commuted to life imprisonment in China.
Liu was suspended from the Communist Party last
May, following allegations that he embezzled funds
and received bribes when handing out contracts for
China's high-speed rail project.
During the trial,
prosecutors argued
that he had helped
11 people win
contracts and
promotions in return
for bribes.
The indictment
reportedly said that
Liu's "malpractice"
led to "huge losses
of public assets and
damage to the interests of the state and people".
Liu began his tenure as railways minister in 2003 and
led a multi-billion dollar investment programme
expanding the rail network.
China's high-speed railway network, said to be the
largest in the world, has been plagued with safety
scandals involving a series of accidents.
A deadly crash in Wenzhou city in July 2011 killed 40
people and caused a national outcry.
At least two government audits - one released in
2010 and another in 2013 - showed evidence of fraud
and irregular accounting in the handling of
government funds.
In March, China dissolved the railways ministry in a
raft of measures aimed at boosting government
efficiency and tackling corruption, placing its
functions under the transport ministry.
Liu is the most high-profile official to be tried and
found guilty of corruption since Xi Jinping became
China's president in March.
But a host of other relatively senior officials, both at a
central and provincial level, have also found
themselves under investigation.
In May, China announced that it was investigating Liu
Tienan, formerly the top official at the body
responsible for planning China's economy, for
"serious disciplinary violations".
Allegations against Mr Liu first surfaced in December,
after an investigative journalist alleged that he made
questionable financial deals, fabricated his academic
record and threatened to kill a former mistress.
Last month, Lei Zhengfu, a former official at the
centre of a sex tape extortion scandal, was jailed for
accepting bribes.
And earlier this month, state media announced that a
high-level provincial official in Inner Mongolia was
also under investigation for "serious disciplinary
violations" - which is often code for corruption.
'Light sentence?'
News of the former rail minister's verdict generated
extensive discussion on China's microblogs, with
many users scathing about what they saw as a
relatively light sentence.
"How long do you think it'll be before he's out
again?" user Clockwork Monkey wrote on Sina Weibo,
a Twitter-like website in China.
"Liu Zhijun wasn't sentenced to death, because if he
was, a whole batch [of officials] would have to die,"
user 2011 Varyag wrote. "Chinese law is a freak!"
Many users on Sina Weibo mocked a Xinhua report
that described Liu's sentence as "a demonstration
that everyone is equal before the law" and that "both
the 'tigers' and 'flies' are being tackled".
"The 'tigers' can't be killed, and the 'flies' can't be
eliminated," user Hu Shengjie Scarf wrote.
"If Liu Zhijun was a regular railway employee, rather
than the former railways minister, would his life
really have been spared?" user Concerned about the
World's Wellbeing wrote.
However, there were a few voices in support of Liu's
verdict.
A user going by the name of The Unsilent Majority
wrote: "A suspended death sentence is still
considered a light sentence? What on earth has Liu
Zhijun done that deserves a certain death penalty? ...
Our bosses today are not so weak or silly as to let
public opinion pressurise the judicial system.. m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-23222240

funny country.

#china is working by d way!