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American DJ duo The Chainsmokers have caused controversy online after cracking a racist joke with a Chinese reporter during a visit to China.

During a video interview at the Ultra Festival in Shanghai which the band originally posted on Twitter, a reporter asks band member Alex Pall if he brings his dog on tour with him.

Pall at first says his dog is badly behaved, before adding, “Well I don’t know if I’d bring her to China.”

Pall and fellow bandmate Andrew Taggart then start laughing, and laughter can be heard off camera, while the Chinese reporter looks at the camera in surprise.

The video, which has since been deleted from The Chainsmokers’ page, has been widely circulated online, prompting a slew of complaints.

On Twitter, @lushtae posted “for the ppl who are confused the chainsmokers basically insinuated a racist remark abt asians eating dogs and laughed it off” (sic).

While @szabts tweeted, “soo how are the chainsmokers jus gonna be racist towards asians while they're in asia being interviewed by an asian interviewer in asia” (sic).

The duo later tweeted an apology in which Pall said his comments came after reading reports “about dogs being slaughtered in certain provinces” in China.

He then added a link to the Stop Yulin Forever activist site, which aims to stop the controversial Yulin Dog Meat Festival which takes place every year in the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

However, the apology didn’t seem to convince many web users.

“Right! Now they're making it a dog slaughtering issue when let's be honest, it was just a horrible racist joke,” tweeted @lvyyaj92.

While @adoretoews posted, “anyways this apology doesn't even sound genuine at all. keep it.”

The controversy over The Chainsmokers’ joke comes two weeks after actress Chloe Bennet branded Hollywood “racist” after dropping her Chinese surname Wang immediately led to landing more roles.

She also spoke out in support of British actor Ed Skrein who recently withdrew from the movie “Hellboy” after discovering he’d been cast to play an Asian character.