A comment made by a CNN reporter last week caused a massive media scandal and China demanded an official apology.

Commentator Jack Cafferty called the country’s leaders a “bunch of goons and thugs� and referred to its products as “junk,� the Associated Press quotes.

The show named “The Situation Room,� which is CNN’s daily political news program, aired on April 9. Reactions started to surface about a week later and determined Cafferty to present a clarification about his statements.

During the show last week, he said: “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 to turn out the stuff that we’re buying from Wal-Mart.” […]”So I think our relationship with China has certainly changed,” he continued. “I think they’re basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years,” as quoted by the AP.

Nearly 45,000 signed the online petition launched by the Legal Immigrant Association, which condemned Cafferty’s statements as “racist� and “despicable� and demanded an apology followed by a harsh disciplinary measure against the show’s host, according to CNN.

In his statement, Jack Cafferty explained that his affirmations referred strictly to the Chinese government and by no means to the Chinese people or to the Chinese-Americans. CNN officials backed up their employee, saying that his job is to express his blunt opinion on any political related subject and he is well known for his remarks on many other governments, including the U.S. government and its leaders.