China have suffered a 3-1 defeat by DPRK in the East Asian Games but still advanced into the semifinals in Macao.

Chinese manager Zhu Guanghu surprisingly put eight second-team players on Thursday's starting line-up.

The new roster jumped to a good start, though, with Wang Ke scoring an opener 14 minutes into the game.

However, that didn't kick off a spree of more goals for China, instead, surrendering the remaining chances to the North Koreans.

Within 15 minutes in the middle of the first half, the DPRK team finished a remarkable three-goal comeback which would wrap up a match victory and put them on top of the group.

Both with semi-guaranteeing 6 points coming into the game, neither China nor the DPRK worried too much about losing it. In fact, some Chinese media even speculate that Zhu decided to throw it away in order for his team to face Japan, which he prefers to play against than South Korea, in the semifinals.

So, the two Koreas will clash in the other semi showdown.

None of the four teams is composed of the finest players from their respective countries. But many on the Chinese side are likely to be reserved for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.