Chinese Community Takes Offense At CNN Commentator's Comments

Los Angeles, CA (AHN) -- Veteran CNN reporter Jack Cafferty is known for speaking his mind, but when he referred to the Chinese Government as "goons" and "thugs," he incited bitterness from the Chinese and Chinese-Americans.

Cafferty's comments were taken as another slap in the face for the Chinese people, who are saying that the Western media has been treating them unfairly since the world spotlight shone on China after a Tibetan uprising against China last month resulted in the killing of eight Tibetan protesters. The killings renewed the West's focus on the human rights abuses China has long been accused of.

The issue has caused many to protest the upcoming Olympics that are to be held in China in the 2008 summer Olympics.

Saturday, some 1,500 pro-Chinese protesters gathered outside CNN's Los Angeles Bureau, carrying signs that said "Chinese Negative News," "Fire Cafferty" and "CNN Liar."

Cafferty's comments referred to America's relationship with China.

Airing on April 9 on CNN's "The Situation Room," Cafferty said, "We continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food and export . . . jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month to 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."

While CNN has issued an apology, saying that the comments were not aimed at the Chinese people, but rather the Chinese government, many in the Chinese community feel the apology was insincere.

An article on the website for China's official Xinhua news, said that the Chinese people have not been comforted by the apology.

Xinhua reporter Xu Zhixiao wrote, "From CNN's statement, people can hardly find the sincerity of an apology to the Chinese people, but only see a lack of sensitivity to the severe insult and humiliation inflicted on them by Cafferty's remarks.

Last September, Cafferty told Time that the only time he'd gotten into trouble on the air was when he called Donald Rumsfeld a war criminal.

In that same interview, called "Cafferty Mouths Off" he was critical of the American government.

"I think that our government spends a good part of their waking hours figuring out what batch of lies they're going to tell us next. I don't believe most of what I'm told by the politicians. I think virtually everything they say for public consumption is said with an agenda. I just don't think that we have a very honest relationship with our government in this country, and it makes me angry," Cafferty said in that interview.