Chatter about John, beaten in Chinese game (7)
I believe the answer is:
mahjong
'chinese game' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'chatter about john beaten' is the wordplay.
'chatter' becomes 'mag' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'about' indicates putting letters inside.
'beaten' indicates an anagram (letters beaten up or destroyed).
'john' with letters rearranged gives 'hjon'.
'mag' placed around 'hjon' is 'MAHJONG'.
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for mahjong that I've seen before include "Chinese table game" , "Chinese tile game" , "Chinese game using tiles" , "Game of Chinese origin played with tiles" , "Game played with pieces called tiles" .)