The other 44 countries competing here look set to play second fiddle to the Chinese juggernaut, although Japan took an early edge in the swimming pool.

Maki Mita set the trend in the women's 200m freestyle with the fastest qualifying time of 2:00.44 ahead of Pan Jiaying of China, the Olympic relay silver medallist.

China's defending champion Yang Yu held off Lee Ji-Eun of South Korea in her heat to win in 2:02.75sec and tipped herself to retain her title.

"In tonight's final I will try to better my time from the morning," she said. "My biggest rival is myself."

Yang collected three gold medals in the Asian Games four years ago and qualified with the third fastest time of 2:02.75, ahead of Japan's Norie Urae, who claimed a place in the final on her 20th birthday.

In the women's 100m butterfy, Zhou Yafei of China won her head-to-head in the heats with Japan's Ayako Doi and both go forward to the evening's final, along with Yuko Nakanishi, the Olympic bronze medallist over 200m.

But it was on the shooting ranges that China really took a grip, winning the first three medals of the Games.

The Chinese men won the 10m Air Rifle team event and the women added the Trap team and individual gold medals to give their rivals a taste of their expected domination on the wind-swept ranges over the next six days.

World number one Li Chen easily won the women's Trap individual event with a tally of 89 points, nine more than the joint 80 scored by teammate Zhu Mei and Lin Yi Chun of Taiwan.

Zhu took the silver on the tie-breaker to make it a 1-2 for the Chinese.

"The wind created a problem but I had prepared for that well over the last two days," said Li.

"It is nice to end the day with both the team and individual golds."

In the team event, Li and her compatriots scored 195 points while North Korea won the silver with 186 points and South Korea the bronze with 174 points.

China had earlier won the first gold medal of the Games when they claimed the men's 10m Air Rifle team event.

South Korea won the silver and India bagged the bronze.

Twenty gold medal events will be decided Saturday including six in the swimming pool. Six titles were also be won on the shooting ranges, with the rest of the spoils shared between judo, weightlifting and artistic gymnastics.

For many countries, particularly China, the Games are crucial preparations in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and performances here are being watched closely.

As well as medal events, the basketball competition continues with China making its first outing, minus NBA superstar Yao Ming.

They take on Kazakhstan, aiming to regain the gold they lost after a 16-year reign to South Korea in Busan in 2002.

In Yao's absence, they will look to former Miami Heat centre Wang Zhizhi to lead from the front, aided by future NBA rookie Yi Jianlian.

Football group matches resume after a day's break with quarter-final slots at stake. South Korea takes on Vietnam, while Kuwait plays the Palestinian territories and United Arab Emirates are up against Jordan.