BEIJING, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- An outraged Chinese public has been flooding the Internet with its intense displeasure and protests over Japan's illegal detention of a Chinese trawler and its crew in the past few days.
Japan detained Chinese captain Zhan Qixiong and his fellow crew of 14 members on September 7 after the trawler they were abroad collided with two Japanese coast guard patrol vessels near the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.
The crewmembers and the boat returned to China on September 13, but Japan extended the illegal detention of Zhan by 10 days on Sunday.
Since the incident, Diaoyu Islands and Zhan Qixiong have become the most searched terms in China's Internet community, the world's largest online community with more than four billion Internet users.
Also, Internet bulletin boards on several major Chinese news portals have been overwhelmed with tens of thousands of messages saying that the Diaoyu Islands have always been an integral part of China and it's within the rights of Chinese fishermen to fish in the waters around the islands.
Above all, these messages call for Japan to immediately and unconditionally release Zhan.
The seizure of our trawler and captain causes an enormous damage to the Chinese people. I strongly demand that Japan return the seized trawler and apologize, said a netizen on Sohu.com, who goes by the name of 1996.
On Sunday, China's Foreign Ministry said that China's relations with Japan were being severely damaged by Japan's decision to prolong Zhan's detention, warning that China would take strong counter measures if Japan did not release him.
We demand the Japanese side immediately release the Chinese captain unconditionally, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu.
China will take strong counter measures if the Japanese side clings obstinately to its own course and double its mistakes, and Japan shall bear all the consequences, Ma said in a press statement.
China has already suspended bilateral exchanges at and above the provincial or ministerial levels, halted contact with Japan on the issues of increasing civil flights and expanding aviation rights between the two countries, and the number of Chinese tourists to Japan has already plunged, according to the ministry.
Wang Hanling, a maritime law expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinhua, Japan's forceful so-called law enforcement in the waters off the Diaoyu Islands were in defiance of the principles of international law as well as Chinese law, which showed that Japan allowed no delay in asserting so-called 'sovereignty' in the area.
It also showed that Japanese politicians were short-sighted in considering Sino-Japanese relations, Wang added.
Zhou Jincheng, a student from China Youth University for Political Sciences, said that Japan should not cling obstinately to its own course, or it would only arouse more anger from the Chinese people.
At Capitan Zhan's coastal hometown of Xiaozha in southeast China's Fujian Province, his family and fellow fishermen are expecting his release.
Recalling his six days and five nights under Japanese detention, Kang Chunming, a member of Zhan's crew, told Xinhua he was very worried about the captain's safety and well-being.
Kang said after Japanese authorities seized their boat, while living on the boat they had to sleep sitting up and many of them had become ill because of unclean drinking water.
Besides, the Japanese took them off the boat for interrogations on a daily basis and, on some occasions, only sent them back in the small hours.
Since Zhan was seized, a lot has changed in his family.
His grandmother died from shock upon learning of the detention, his outgoing son, 13, has become exceptionally sensitive and silent, and his wife's call for her husband's release has grown increasingly stronger with the traditional moon festival, a time for family reunion, only two days away.
It has been so many days, why don't they release him? How can his grandmother rest in peace? Zhan's wife, Chen Tingting, told Xinhua in their simple house, which makes the portrait of Zhan's deceased grandmother more prominent.