With the hard-fought victory, the Chinese gained a revenge four years after losing to South Korea 102-100 in an over-time thriller in the final of the Busan Asian Games.

"I am happy for this game, because it's the first time we played under big pressure at this tournament," said China head coach Jonas Kazlauskas.

"Generally speaking, we played not bad defense today. You have to play good defense in tough games," he added.

South Korea was held to 4-for-17 from beyond the arc, compared to 9-for-22 for China.

South Korea, who surprisingly finished fourth in its group with three wins against two losses, went home with its worst result ever at the Asian Games.

Two days ago, Bang Sung Yoon became the hero of South Korea as he scored 42 points and hit 12 three-pointers to lift his side over Qatar 87-81 in over-time. However, he was unable to make miracle again.

Less than four minutes into the quarter-final match, Bang, who was not fully recovered from an ankle injury, sustained a minor injury to his foot before taking to the bench and never returned.

Despite that, South Korea started well against the Chinese, who had won five games in a row in the group stage, battling for a 10-7 lead and held it to 13-12 before China ran off seven straight points for a 19-13 advantage at the end of the first quarter.

Ha Seung Jin, a former NBA player standing at 2.23 meters, played solid inside game to help South Korea stay in the game early in the second quarter, but China concluded the first half with a 13-4 burst for a big cushion at 41-25.

Trailing 49-37 into the fourth quarter, South Korea cut it to 49-42 through a 5-0 run, only to see Wang Zhizhi score 10 consecutive points to make it 59-42 with six minutes remaining.

Wang, who struggled with foul trouble, finished 4-for-6 from the field to score 16 points in 13 minutes of play for China.

"Wang fell in foul trouble early, that made it difficult for us," said Kazlauskas.

NBA prospect Yi Jianlian managed 18 points through 6-for-16 shooting and pulled down 14 rebounds for China.

"Yi played really good today, it's difficult for him because Wang is out," Kazlauskas said. "I am happy with how he fought."

South Korea was led by Ha, who had 16 points and 16 rebounds in34 minutes.

China will play Jordan in Wednesday's semi-finals.