A former accountant at a Chinese power company who fled to Southeast Asia after being accused of taking bribes more than 17 years ago stood trial in Beijing on Tuesday.

Liu Mengping took more than 6 million yuan ($954,000) along with two former colleagues while working at a subsidiary of China International Water and Electric Corp between 1995 and 1998, according to prosecutors.

Most of the illicit money has since been recovered, they said.

Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court heard that police launched an investigation into Liu in June 2000, about a month after she had collected her passport and more than 90,000 yuan in cash from her mother-in-law's home and fled to Hong Kong, where she was reunited with her husband.

She changed her name to Liu Sijia and applied to be Singapore citizen, "as I thought the old name was unlucky", not because she wanted to escape detection, she told the court.

Liu was listed among China's most-wanted fugitives in 2015, yet she was able to travel between Singapore and China several times, the court said. She was detained by authorities on June 29 during her latest visit.

The court said the defendant has confessed to most charges and that it would announced its verdict at a later date.