Beijing: China has formally asked American broadcaster CNN and one of its commentators to withdraw "vile remarks" calling the Chinese "a bunch of goons and thugs" and tender an apology to its people.

The CNN yesterday said it was not their intention to cause offence to the Chinese people and would apologise to "anyone who has interpreted the comments" otherwise.

The commentator, Jack Cafferty, was only "offering his strongly held opinion of the Chinese government, not the Chinese people", it said.

Notwithstanding the clarification, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jiancho said the CNN statement had failed to apologise for its anchor's remarks which "maliciously attacked the Chinese people and violated professional ethics".

"We once again solemnly urge CNN and Cafferty to take back the vile remarks and make a sincere apology to all Chinese people", he said in a statement, after the Foreign Ministry lodged a "solemn representation" with CNN's Beijing office, official Xinhua news agency said.

Liu said journalists should abide by their ethics and "they don't have the privilege to slander or rile at anybody or any government".

CNN Beijing bureau chief Jaime FlorCruz also met Liu last night, US media reports said.

In his remarks in "The Show Room", a political programme, Cafferty said, "we are also running hundreds of billions of dollars worth of trade deficits with them, as we continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food and export, you know, jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month and turn out the stuff that we're buying from Wal-Mart.

"So, I think our relationship with China has certainly changed. I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years".

Angered at the remarks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu had on Tuesday accused the commentator of "using the microphone" to tarnish the image of China and Chinese people and said it showed "ignorance and racism" against the Chinese.

She had also asked the Atlanta-based TV network to apologise.

The Western media, including CNN, has come under severe attack from China over what it calls as "biased and distorted" coverage of the unrest in Tibet. In a sustained campaign, lakhs of internet users have been pouring scorn on the Western media.

Source : PTI