Hong Kong will take on Japan and South Korea in November - at the Asian Championship in Colombo, Sri Lanka - for Asia's solitary ticket to France. Asia is one of the fastest growth areas in world rugby, but is only given one automatic berth to the World Cup.

Japan are raging favourites to win the three-team final qualifying round, and once again represent Asia. But ever since the inaugural tournament in 1987 - when Japan were invited to take part by the International Rugby Board - every World Cup has seen Asia handed just 11/2 spots. The half is the repechage berth which goes to the runners-up, and this is Hong Kong's realistic goal, according to captain Brett Forsyth.

'Japan might be a bit too strong as they are in a different league to the rest of the teams in Asia,' he said. 'But we fancy our chances against Korea. Making it to the repechage is our aim now.'

Forsyth admitted yesterday's win was 'not pretty', but said they were always in control. 'In the end the job was done,' he said. 'We felt we were always in control, even though China came back strongly in the second half.'

Jason Going and Semi Iafeta scored first-half tries as Hong Kong led 17-0 at the break. Flyhalf Nigel D'Acre added both conversions and also kicked three penalties in the closely contested game.

China were a far cry from the team who folded 30-0 to Sri Lanka in Colombo last month. Playing at home, they were transformed and a sweeping try by their backline early in the second half gave Hong Kong a headache or two.

'It was tough,' said Ivan Torpey, Hong Kong Rugby Football Union's head of performance. 'We knew they would never make it easy, especially at home. We are very pleased to come away with a win. Now we can start looking ahead to November's final qualifying round.'

Hong Kong began well, racing to a 14-0 lead in the first 20 minutes. The ever-reliable Going slipped his marker to complete a move initiated by the forwards from a lineout, to score the first try.

This was soon followed by bustling No 8 Iafeta driving over from a maul.

But it all changed in the second half. Forsyth said: 'It is a cliche, but this was a game of two halves. We totally dominated the first, but they almost dominated the second half. We were cruising along nicely when they scored against the run of play. That rattled us and all of a sudden we were under the cosh.'

With their heads up, China went on the offensive. But Hong Kong's defence was more than up to the task, with Iafeta leading the forwards and centre Forsyth a rock in midfield.

Torpey said: 'They were resilient. We put up some good passages of play, but unfortunately the final pass didn't go to hand. We should have had a few more points on the board.'

Hong Kong might have wanted to make a statement by crushing both second-round opponents, Sri Lanka and China. They beat Sri Lanka 45-14, scoring seven tries, but China at home were a different prospect.

South Korea will be too - the last time they met, the Koreans romped to a 56-3 victory in the preliminary round of the Asia zone qualifiers at Hong Kong Football Club a year ago.