The Japanese coastguard has detained 14 Chinese citizens who arrived at the Diaoyu Islands on Wednesday after sailing from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to assert China's sovereignty of the islands.

This is outrageous. Chinese citizens have the right to visit Chinese territory, while Japan has no right to arrest Chinese citizens on Chinese territory. Japan should free them immediately.

Japan has been repeatedly provoking China this year by constantly making waves around the islets, which were not returned to China as they should have been when the United States handed over the administration of Okinawa to Japan in the early 1970s. But each time China has shown restraint. Even when Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo, started to raise money in April to buy the Diaoyu Islands, we were willing to view it as just political kabuki.