China's last minute win over Japan in soccer following an overwhelming victory in swimming offset the pains of losing the men's basketball semifinal on the next-to-last day of the East Asian Games.

Deadlocked at 1-1, China nailed the 2-1 victory on Du Wei's injury-time winner Saturday night, setting up a title clash with DPR Korea, a 2-0 conqueror of South Korea earlier.

Chinese swimmers swept nine golds from as many events with Aya Terakawa winning Japan's sole swim title from the women's 100m backstroke final.

Two golds were awarded after Terakawa and Chinese Gao Chang touched the pad at the same time of 1:01.70.

Zeng Qiliang shattered an Asian record as he won the men's 50m breaststroke final in 27.83 seconds before Zhu Yingwen clocked a games best in winning the women's 50m freestyle.

Huang Shaohua timed a games mark of 49.79 to claim the men's 100m freestyle title and Zheng Jing grabbed the women's 400m freestyle in 4:14.89.

Zhou Jiawei took the men's 100m butterfly in 52.70, also a games record, and Wang Qun finished first in 2:26.05 in the women's 200m breaststroke, before Ouyang Kunpeng posted a games mark of 54.41 to win the men's 100m backstroke.

The Chinese quartet of Yang Yu, Pang Jiaying, Xu Yanwei and Zhu Yingwen won the women's 4x100 freestyle relay in 3:40.79, the fifth games record for the night.

In the Macao Stadium, a last-gasp header by Du Wei earned China a thrilling 2-1 victory over Japan.

Just as the match looked set for a 1-1 draw in regulation time, the Scottish Celtic defender rose unmarked in the penalty box to head home a free-kick from midfielder Sun Xiang one minute into injury time.

China opened the scoring in the 41st minute with a header by striker Gao Lin, but the Japanese equalized through Shingo Akamine 's header 15 minutes after halftime.

The Chinese eleven revenged their basketballers, who were sent packing Saturday afternoon by the Japanese after NBA prospect Yi Jianlian fouled out.

The 2.12m Yi was leading China's fightback in the fifth quarter when he committed his fifth foul and was expelled by Slovakian referee Ladislav Janac.

Japan led 35-27 at half-time and led by nine points going into the final quarter. China cut the gap to five points with four minutes left.

But without Li, the Chinese missed two crucial scoring chances before Joji Takeuchi's three-pointer sealed the 68-60 victory.

Japan will play against Chinese Taipei, a 47-42 winner over South Korea, in Sunday's title match.

"We played a great game," said Japan's Croatian coach Zeljko Pavlicevic. "It wasn't a final-ball game and we won it by eight points."

"You see the scoreboard, we are good in almost every thing -points, assists, rebounds and steals."

In rowing, China nabbed four golds and DPR Korea lifted two, with South Korea and Japan each picking one.

Mongolia ended its gold drought in Macao through women's air pistol shooter Tsogbadrkh Munkhzul as China and Japan shot down two and one gold respectively.

As the biggest winner in karatedo, Japan won three golds in its national sport. Chinese Taipei bagged two golds with host Macao lifting one.

Japan also won the women's hockey final by beating South Korea 3-1, with the bronze going to the Chinese team led by South Korean guru coach Kim Chang-back.

Japan pocketed five titles against China's four in sport dancing which is making an East Asian Games debut. South Korea had one gold.

In bowling, Choi Jina triumphed in an all-South Korean women's masters final and Japanese Hirofumi Morimoto snatched the men's masters crown.

China perches high on the medal standings with 120 golds, followed by Japan (41), South Korea (29), Chinese Taipei (11), Macao (10), DPR Korea (6), Hong Kong (2) and Mongolia (1).

Guam is the only gold-less participant.