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The Guardian
Vice-president Joe Biden arrived in Japan on Monday amid a rift with America's closest Pacific ally after China announced an expanded air defense zone.While the US and Japan have made a public show of unity following China’s demand last week that all aircraft passing over a disputed island chain identify themselves to Beijing, American and Japanese aviation authorities are adopting divergent positions over whether civilian flights should comply with the Chinese demand.
Biden, who arrived in Tokyo late Monday night local time, now has the task of reassuring Japanese and South Korean allies over their fraught confrontation with China about its expansive so-called “air defense identification zone.” The issue is likely to overshadow a week-long trip to the three Asian countries that US officials had hoped would focus on economic affairs.
“I believe this latest incident underscores the need for agreement between China and Japan to establish crisis management and confidence-building measures to lower tensions,” Biden said in an interview with Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper on the eve of his arrival.
Spiegel Online
Beijing's recent establishment of a new air defense zone in the East China Sea is exacerbating long-running disputes with its neighbors Japan and Taiwan -- and threatens to draw the US military into a larger regional conflict.If it were only a matter of distance, the solution to a dispute over a small group of hotly contested islands in the East China Sea would be simple. Taiwan, which is just 200 kilometers (125 miles) away from the islands, would take the prize. The Chinese mainland is farther off, at 330 kilometers away, and the Japanese island of Okinawa even more distant, at 400 kilometers. Why then shouldn't small Taiwan take control of the five uninhabited islands and three rock outcroppings, known as the Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan?
New York Times
Tokyo — With Japan locked in a tense standoff with China over disputed airspace, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrived here late Monday for a weeklong visit to Asia intended to reassure a close ally and demand answers from a potential adversary.But first, Mr. Biden may need to repair a perceived disconnect between the United States and Japan in their responses to China’s declaration of a restricted flight zone over a swath of the East China Sea that includes disputed islands claimed by both Japan and China.