“On behalf of CNN, I’d like to apologise to the Chinese people for that,” CNN President Jim Walton has said in a letter to Zhou Wenzhong, the Chinese Ambassador to the United States, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.

CNN commentator Jack Cafferty had said in a live show in April that Chinese products were “junk” and that the Chinese were “basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years”.

In the letter, Walton said CNN had the “highest respect” for Chinese people around the world and “we have no doubt that there was genuine offence felt by them over the Jack Cafferty commentary,” official Xinhua news agency said.

Cafferty’s remarks had fuelled anger among Chinese who targeted CNN for condemnation during their recent anti-West protests. Earlier, the CNN was criticised during protests against alleged “biased and distorted” coverage of the Tibet unrest by the Western media.

CNN had said that it was not Cafferty’s intent to cause offence to the Chinese people and “CNN apologises to anyone who has interpreted the comment in this way”.

Cafferty was only offering his “strongly held” opinion of the Chinese government, not the people, CNN had said.