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Biden, in Japan, Calibrates Message Over Tensions With China Biden, in Japan, Calibrates Message Over Tensions With China
(about 4 hours later)
TOKYO — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. delivered a carefully calibrated show of support for Japan on Tuesday, declaring the United States was “deeply concerned” about China’s move to control airspace contested with Japan. But he stopped short of demanding that China retreat, and urged the feuding neighbors to talk to each other. TOKYO — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. delivered a carefully calibrated show of support for Japan on Tuesday, expressing deep concerns about China’s move to control airspace over islands in the East China Sea, but stopping short of a demand that Beijing reverse itself. Instead, he urged the feuding neighbors to talk to each other.
Mr. Biden’s statement, at the start of an unexpectedly challenging trip to Asia that includes a stop in Beijing, captured the strategic complexities for the United States in the tense showdown between Japan and China over disputed claims in the East China Sea. Mr. Biden’s statement, at the start of an unexpectedly challenging trip to Asia that is next taking him to Beijing, captured the complexities for the United States as it navigates a bitter standoff between Japan and China over the territorial claims — a dispute it neither wishes to mediate nor see escalate into violence.
China, Mr. Biden said, was trying to “unilaterally change the status quo in the East China Sea,” with an air defense identification zone that he said “raised regional tensions and increased the risk of accidents and miscalculation.” He said he would raise the American concerns in detail when he meets with the Chinese leadership on Wednesday. China’s air defense identification zone, Mr. Biden said after meeting with Japanese leaders, is an effort to “unilaterally change the status quo in the East China Sea” that raises “the risk of accidents and miscalculation.” He said he would bring up these concerns in detail when he met with the Chinese leadership.
But rather than call for China to roll back its defense zone, as the Japanese government has called on China to do, Mr. Biden said that China and Japan needed “crisis management mechanisms and effective channels of communication” to avoid the risk of an accident or miscalculation. But with China unlikely to rescind a move so laden with nationalistic overtones, the vice president’s focus appeared to be less on rolling back the defense zone than on neutralizing its impact by persuading the Chinese authorities to stop scrambling fighter jets or otherwise disrupting the busy air corridors between Japan and China.
“The only conflict that is worse than one that is intended is one that is unintended,” Mr. Biden said, quoting his father, as an unsmiling Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stood next to him. China, likewise, seemed eager to defuse tensions. On the eve of Mr. Biden’s visit, the Defense Ministry issued an unusual clarification on the defense zone, declaring that it “will not affect the freedom of overflight, based on international laws, of other countries’ aircraft.”
For his part, Mr. Abe said the United States and Japan would “not tolerate the attempt by China to change the status quo by force.” He said both countries reaffirmed that they would not alter any joint military operations because of China’s zone, and he added, “We will not condone any action that will threaten the safety of civilian aircraft.” The statement said that the Chinese military was “fully capable” of exercising control over the zone, which covers a wide swath of the East China Sea, but it added that such deterrence would not always be needed. “Fighter planes are unnecessary,” it said, “when an entering aircraft is found to pose no threat to us, but necessary surveillance is needed.”
That appeared to be an attempt to smooth over a disconnect between the United States and Japan over the weekend, after the Federal Aviation Administration advised American carriers to identify themselves when entering the restricted zone. The Japanese government has instructed its carriers to ignore the Chinese demand. In Tokyo, Mr. Biden said that China and Japan needed “crisis management mechanisms and effective channels of communication” to avoid the risk of miscalculation. The countries have discussed a hotline, but the talks have gone nowhere.
Administration officials insisted there was no daylight between the United States and Japan on how to respond to China’s move. The F.A.A.'s guidance, they said, was no different than it would have been in any other case where a country issued a warning to planes or ships. “The only conflict that is worse than one that is intended is one that is unintended,” the vice president said as a grave-looking Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stood next to him.
“Nothing that F.A.A. has done constitutes any acceptance or recognition of this,” said a senior administration official who is traveling with Mr. Biden. “The U.S. has clearly set forth that our military aircraft will continue to operate normally.” The Japanese government has called for China to roll back the restricted zone. But Mr. Abe, perhaps seeking to project unity with Mr. Biden, did not repeat that demand on Tuesday. He said the United States and Japan had reaffirmed that they would not alter any joint military operations in the area, and added, “We will not condone any action that will threaten the safety of civilian aircraft.”
Administration officials said Mr. Biden would urge China not to create any other such zones and to show restraint in policing this one. But neither the vice president nor his aides made any reference to asking the Chinese to rescind its action. That appeared to be an attempt to smooth over a disconnect between the United States and Japan over the Federal Aviation Administration’s guidance to American carriers that they identify themselves before entering the restricted zone. Officials in Tokyo have instructed Japanese carriers to ignore the Chinese demand.
The Japanese government perceives the Chinese air defense identification zone, which covers a wide swath of the East China Sea, as an attempt by the Chinese to assert control over a clump of disputed islands, known in the Japan as the Senkaku and in China as the Diaoyu. Japan has a long-established air defense identification zone of its own that covers much of the same area of the sea, including the islands. The dispute has raised tensions in the region to their highest level in nearly two decades. Obama administration officials insisted that there was no daylight between the United States and Japan on how to respond to the Chinese zone. The aviation administration, they said, routinely gives guidance whenever a country issues a warning to ships and planes.
In Beijing, a foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, said China’s defense zone was fully in compliance with international law. Mr. Hong suggested that China was open to the idea of establishing crisis-management mechanisms. But he quickly added that Japan was not. “Nothing that the F.A.A. has done constitutes any acceptance or recognition of this,” said a senior administration official traveling with Mr. Biden. “The U.S. has clearly set forth that our military aircraft will continue to operate normally.”
“The Japanese side unilaterally, on one hand, declares they want dialogue, but then they close the door to dialogue,” he said. “We ask the Japanese side to change their mistakes.” Administration officials said that Mr. Biden would urge China not to create any other such zones and to show restraint in policing this one. By treating the zone as irrelevant, American officials hope to reduce the Chinese government’s incentive to declare zones in the South China Sea or the Yellow Sea, where it has other territorial disputes.
For Mr. Biden, the dispute has been a distraction on a trip that he hoped would cover a range of other issues, from a trans-Pacific trade agreement to the nuclear threat in North Korea. The Japanese government perceives the defense zone as an attempt by the Chinese to assert control over a clump of disputed islands, known in Japan as the Senkaku and in China as the Diaoyu. Japan has a long-established air defense identification zone that covers much of the East China Sea, including those islands.
But Mr. Biden still found time to tour a Japanese Internet company founded and run by a female entrepreneur, Tomoko Namba. Joined by Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, he chatted with five female employees in a leather banquette at the company’s sleek Tokyo offices. Pointedly taking note of that, the Chinese Defense Ministry statement said that Japan’s actions, including “playing up the so-called China threat” and threatening to shoot down Chinese drones, had forced China to make “necessary reactions.”
“Do your husbands like you working full-time?” Mr. Biden asked the women, who nodded energetically. He also inquired whether the company, known as DeNA, offered child-care service and whether female employees were allowed to work from home. The dispute has raised tensions in the region to their highest level in nearly two decades. Some analysts said they believed that the Chinese government was caught off guard by the ferocity of the opposition from the United States, the European Union and Australia, on top of a predictably angry response by Japan and South Korea.
Mr. Biden seemed to delight in being accompanied around Tokyo by Ms. Kennedy, whose name has given her celebrity status in a post that has frequently been held by prominent political figures, including one of Mr. Biden’s predecessors, Walter F. Mondale. But in Beijing, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, rejected suggestions that China should rescind the defense zone, saying it was fully in compliance with international law. He suggested that China was open to the idea of establishing crisis-management mechanisms.
Before his meeting with Mr. Abe, the vice president jokingly introduced himself by saying, “My name is Joe Biden, and I’m accompanying the ambassador” – a line that echoed John F. Kennedy’s famous quip when he was overshadowed on the presidential trip to France in 1961 by his glamorous wife, Jacqueline Kennedy. But, Mr. Hong contended, Japan was not. “The Japanese side unilaterally, on one hand, declares they want dialogue, but then they close the door to dialogue,” he said.
For Mr. Biden, the dispute has been a distraction on a trip that he had hoped would promote a range of other issues, from a trans-Pacific trade agreement to the nuclear threat in North Korea. In his remarks, Mr. Abe raised the standoff with China as his first order of business with Mr. Biden, who mentioned it well down a list of other priorities.
Still, Mr. Biden found time to tour a Japanese Internet company founded and run by a female entrepreneur, Tomoko Namba. Joined by the new United States ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, he chatted with five female employees on a leather banquette at the company’s sleek Tokyo offices.
“Do your husbands like you working full time?” the vice president asked the women, who nodded energetically. He also inquired whether the company, known as DeNA, offered child-care service and whether female employees were allowed to work from home.
Mr. Biden seemed to delight in being accompanied around town by Ms. Kennedy, whose name has given her celebrity status in a post that has frequently been held by prominent political figures, including one of Mr. Biden’s predecessors, Walter F. Mondale.
Before his meeting with Mr. Abe, the vice president jokingly introduced himself by saying, “My name is Joe Biden, and I’m accompanying the ambassador” — a line that echoed John F. Kennedy’s famous quip when he was overshadowed on a presidential trip to France in 1961 by his glamorous wife, Jacqueline Kennedy.

Mark Landler reported from Tokyo and Jane Perlez from Beijing