American Broadcasting Company has apologized for airing a TV show in which a child suggested the US should "kill everyone in China", an Asian-American political group told Xinhua on Sunday.

S.B. Woo, president of the 80-20 Initiative, said ABC wrote in its letter to the group that a phone call to personally apologize would have been insufficient, so it was also writing to express its regrets.

"We would never purposefully broadcast anything to upset the Chinese community, Asian community, anyone of Chinese descent of any community at large," ABC said in the letter. "Our objective is to entertain".

ABC stressed that it has "taken swift action" and removed the offending segment from all media platforms and promised to "edit it out of any future airing of the show".

In the ABC show Jimmy Kimmel Live, aired on Oct 16, Jimmy Kimmel asked children how the US should deal with its government's shutdown and the nation's debt to China. One of the children said that the United States should "kill everyone in China".

Critics said that Kimmel was wrong for not stopping the comment and failing to explain to the children that it was not the right idea, and it was even worse that ABC failed to remove the comment from the show before it aired.

(China Daily 10/29/2013 page12)