Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Yong-joon delivered the message to ambassador Ning Fukui in a scheduled meeting at Lee’s office, a ministry spokesman said.

“The government expressed strong regret over radical acts by some of the young Chinese during the torch relay yesterday,” the spokesman said.

Thousands of young Chinese rallied Sunday during the Seoul leg of the relay and some clashed violently with a small number of Korean protesters.

Police said they arrested a Chinese student for hurling a stone at protesters.

A Chinese embassy spokesman could not immediately be reached but Yonhap news agency said the ambassador apologized during the meeting.

“Ning offered an apology for the incident,” it quoted an unnamed ministry official as saying.

“We showed him police reports on violence caused by some young Chinese people and expressed strong regret,” the official told Yonhap.

The ambassador later told reporters: “What I want to stress is that Chinese people, especially Chinese students here, have good feelings about South Koreans.”

More than 30,000 Chinese study in South Korea.

The meeting was originally intended for Ning to express appreciation for the South Korean government’s cooperation in the relay.

Clashes erupted when some 300 protesters, including North Koreans, demonstrated against China’s forced repatriation of North Korean refugees and its crackdown on Tibetans.

More than 6,000 Chinese demonstrators, mostly college students, had also gathered for the start of the relay in Olympic Park.

In one clash between the two groups, some Chinese threw water bottles, stones, chunks of wood and drink cans at their adversaries.

In another incident Chinese students surrounded and beat up a small group of protesters, according to witnesses. They said a local newspaper photographer suffered a head injury from a stone thrown by the students.

Police deployed some 8,300 officers backed up by two helicopters to secure the relay.

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