Biden’s trip to Japan, China and South Korea, which begins on 1 December, was meant to be mainly about economic issues but will now be dominated by rising tensions over the disputed Senkaku Islands, which are claimed by Japan and China and fall under Beijing’s expanded air defense zone.
Washington’s stepping up of diplomatic efforts comes a day after flying two B-52 bombers on an unannounced flight into the disputed zone – the most direct military show of force to China in nearly two decades.
US officials said the vice-president would discuss “lowering tensions and advancing diplomacy” when he meets the Chinese leadership, including President Xi Jinping.
Two senior administration officials, who briefed reporters on Wednesday on condition of anonymity, said Biden would “seek clarity in Chinese intentions in making this move at this time”. But they stopped short of saying that Biden will demand the Chinese roll back their air defense zone west of the island chain.
The visit, coupled with the B-52 overflight, “allows the vice-president to make the point that there is an emerging pattern of behavior unsettling to China’s neighbors”, one of the senior administration officials said.
The US also moved to reassure its unnerved ally, Japan. Defense secretary Chuck Hagel called his Japanese counterpart Itsunori Onodera on Wednesday morning to underline Washington’s continued support.
According to a Pentagon description of the call, Hagel reiterated to Onodera the “longstanding US policy” that the post-second world war defense treaty between the US and Japan, which obliges Washington to come to Tokyo’s aid in the event of an attack, “applies to the Senkaku Islands”.
The State Department also confirmed Wednesday that John Kerry called Japanese foreign minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday to discuss the Chinese move. Kishida has said the Chinese air defense information zone “cannot be allowed,” according to Kyodo News.
Hagel reiterated his denunciation of China's move, calling it a “potentially destabilizing unilateral action designed to change the status quo in the region, [which] raises the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculation”.
Continuing a public position the Pentagon has adopted before and after the B-52 overflight – which it has described as a long-planned training exercise from nearby Guam – Hagel said US military operations in the Pacific would continue unaffected.
Biden’s visit to China will be the first high-level bilateral interaction since Xi met Barack Obama in California in June. The US government shutdown in October prompted Obama to cancel a trip to Asia that was intended to underscore a theme that Biden will deliver: the US “rebalance” to Asia, one of the major geopolitical aspirations of the Obama administration.
Accordingly, the senior administration officials said Biden will emphasize the need to “cool down” tensions in the region – while also conveying that the US commitments to its allies is “beyond question”.
The advance of Chinese power in the Pacific marks the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union that the US has a regional military power that poses a traditional, symmetric challenge to its dominance.
While the Chinese military is incapable as yet of challenging the US – it has only begun to seriously invest in aircraft carriers and stealth warplanes, although it is developing advanced “carrier killer” missiles – a crucial question for US strategists is whether Beijing’s move will draw other Asian nations towards it.
The two senior administration officials said China’s new air defense information zone had the potential to disrupt the regional status quo in unforeseen ways, posing threats to aviation from multiple countries and international businesses.
“In the first instance, there is a need for China to clarify its intentions, to answer a number of questions this will generate, both as a civil aviation matter as well as a strategic matter,” said an official.
Source: theguardian.com
Author: Spencer Ackerman
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