Huge basketball punch-up as China takes on US

Sport often overshadows politics, and US vice-president Joe Biden has discovered just that on a trip to China designed to improve relations between the two countries.

As part of the festivities a touring basketball team from Washington's Georgetown University played a "friendship fixture" against local side, the Bayi Military Rockets. It turned out to be anything but, as a spectacular brawl erupted between the two sides. Players punched and kicked each other, chairs were thrown and the fighting even spilled out into the stands. Understandably, the match was abandoned.

There were attempts at a reconciliation between the two teams at Beijing airport on Friday. Members of the Bayi team, accompanied by a Chinese government heavyweight, in the form of vice foreign minister Cui Tianaki, met with the American tourists and gifts were exchanged.

Let's hope the peace talks worked. The two teams are due to meet again on Sunday in Shanghai and another fight would do the fragile diplomatic relationship between the US and China no good. Ties are already strained over China's military plans and accusations that they are undermining the global economic recovery. ·