Joe Biden: The Bull in the China Shop

The vice president creates waves with comments in China, but he was right to make them.
By Elizabeth C. Economy

In the midst of an already diplomatically challenging trip to Japan, China, and South Korea, U.S. vice president Joe Biden managed to make life just that much more difficult for himself. 

The vice president had a number of thorny issues already on his agenda, such as advancing the cause of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, discussing how to make progress on North Korea, trying to get Japan and South Korea on the same page, and most importantly, trying to persuade Beijing to step back and renounce its establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) that overlapped with the pre-established ADIZs of South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan or at the very least, to avoid declaring any new ADIZs.
Despite this full plate of unenviable tasks, Vice President Biden couldn’t resist igniting a mini-media firestorm in Beijing when, in the name of creativity and innovation, he called on young Chinese seeking to visit the United States to “challenge the government, challenge your teachers, challenge religious leaders.” 

He went on to praise the importance of new immigrants to the United States in reinvigorating “the spirit of America” and reinforced that “stamped in the DNA of every American” is an “inherent rejection of orthodoxy.”
At first glance, his remarks seem at best impolitic, at worst downright harmful to the overall cause of furthering cooperation with China. 

Yet, upon further reflection—which the vice president may or may not have undertaken prior to uttering his call to arms—his comments signaled one of the most important policy thrusts of the entire visit.
As China cracks down politically at home and promulgates its own ideals abroad through its Confucius Institutes and state-run media, it matters that U.S. officials reiterate American political values. 

Not doing so in an effort to appease Chinese sensibilities not only is craven but also doesn’t win any favors from Beijing. 

This past week during his own visit to China, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron showered nothing but praise upon his Chinese hosts; in return he earned a scathing editorial in the Global Times and was forced to stand by and watch as one of his journalist countrymen was barred from his press conference with Chinese President Xi Jinping. 

Similarly, when Bloomberg fired star reporter Michael Forsythe in November—apparently for leaking to the New York Times that Bloomberg was kowtowing to Chinese pressure by holding back on the publication of a politically sensitive piece—the news corporation was rewarded with nothing better than visits by Chinese police to their newsrooms in Beijing and Shanghai.
In fact, Vice President Biden took on the issue of Chinese treatment of U.S. journalists and media companies directly in his talks with Chinese president Xi Jinping. 

U.S. media companies have long been stymied in their efforts to report openly and critically on China for fear of reprisals from Beijing. 

As Mark Landler reported in the New York Times, nearly two dozen New York Times and Bloomberg journalists are awaiting accreditation from Beijing; without it they will be expelled, effectively shutting down their China bureaus. 

The question now is whether the U.S. government will take further steps to pressure China on this issue. Would Washington be willing to delay the visas of Chinese journalists? 

Is there an issue of market access that could be advanced through the World Trade Organization? 

It may seem foolish to risk the overall relationship with China for such issues: The ADIZ, for example, represents a more immediate threat to regional security than access to China for U.S. journalists. 

However, the political values the vice president is advancing—transparency, openness, and accountability—in the final analysis are reflected not only in the way that China does business at home but also in how it behaves abroad. 

Biden is right to hold China to account on both fronts.

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China pulls out of UN process over territorial dispute with Philippines

“There is a price to be paid for branding yourself an international outlaw – a state that does not comply with the rules.” -- Paul Reichler
By Paul Lewis in Washington

Fallout over China’s territorial claims has become the dominant issue for Joe Biden. 

China is taking the highly unusual step of refusing to participate in a United Nations arbitration process over a territorial conflict with the Philippines, one of five countries challenging Beijing’s claims of ownership over the oil-rich South China Sea.
The legal dispute underscores the tough geopolitical approach China is adopting in the Pacific region. 

It has adopted an aggressive approach toward neighbours over a 2,000-mile stretch that also includes the East China Sea, over which it recently declared the air defence identification zone that has inflamed tensions with Japan and South Korea.
China sent its only aircraft carrier to the disputed waters off the coast of the Philippines for the first time last week, in a move Manila said raised tensions. 

China’s military said the carrier Liaoning will conduct drills in the area, accompanied by two destroyers and two frigates.
Dealing with the fallout over China’s territorial claims has become the dominant issue for the US vice-president, Joe Biden, who is currently touring the Asia Pacific region.
Biden arrived in South Korea on Thursday after high-level bilateral meetings in China and Japan that were dominated by the issue of the air defence zone.
The Philippines will submit its formal case to the UN arbitration tribunal of judges, which has agreed to hear the case at The Hague, in March. 

A preview of their arguments were outlined this week in Washington by Paul Reichler, an expert attorney at Foley Hoag LLP hired by Manila to handle the case.
He said China’s blank refusal to participate in the tribunal process, a move it revealed to the Philippines by way of diplomatic letter in February, marked the first time a state had ever refused to take part in an inter-state arbitration under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Under the convention, the panel of senior international judges is still required to issue a ruling in the case, despite China’s non-cooperation, although Reichler conceded there were no way of enforcing any ruling.
But he added: “There is a price to be paid for branding yourself an international outlaw – a state that does not comply with the rules.” 

China declined an opportunity to comment on the case.
The dispute concerns China’s declaration of the so-called nine-dash line, which claims jurisdiction over nearly all of the mineral-rich South China Sea, overlapping with large segments of territory claimed by the Philippines as well as of Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.
In parts, China’s declared jurisdiction, which enables it to exploit lucrative fishing waters and potential oil and gas reserves, stretch more than 800 miles from its mainland coast. 

It also comes to within 30 miles of the coast of the Philippines.
Under the convention, states have a right to an exclusive economic zone and continental shelf within 200 miles of their coast. 

Disputes over the South China Sea are not unlike those over the Japanese Senkaku islands which are dominating Biden’s visits to Japan, China and South Korea this week.
Although the ad-hoc tribunal formed to deal with the case cannot rule on the sovereignty of the islands claimed by both China and the Philippines, it can provide rulings about the nature of rock formations, with implications for any territorial claims under the convention. 

Some of the disputed territories are barely visible at high tide, while others are fully submerged even at low tide.
In a bid to strengthen its claims, China has constructed concrete installations on some underwater formations, complete with basketballs and helipads. 

“A state cannot transform an underwater feature into an island by building on top of it,” Reichler said at a seminar organised by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
In simple terms, the judges will in part be asked to determine when a rock can be defined as an island. 

If a rock protruding from the sea cannot sustain human life or economic activity, for example, the associated rights in surrounding waters are, under the convention, dramatically reduced, regardless of which state claims ownership.
Reichler also showed one slideshow of an island that, at high-tide, consisted of rocks that only just protruded out of the water. 

“It is barely big enough to support the Filipino flag,” he said.

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China Pressures U.S. Journalists, Prompting Warning From Biden

Mr. Biden’s comments were the first time a senior American leader had publicly accused the Chinese of aiming at entire journalistic institutions. 

By MARK LANDLER and DAVID E. SANGER

BEIJING — China appears ready to force nearly two dozen journalists from American news organizations to leave the country by the end of the year, a significant increase in pressure on foreign news media that has prompted the American government’s first public warning about repercussions.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. raised the issue here in meetings with President Xi Jinping and other top Chinese leaders, and then publicly chastised the Chinese on Thursday for refusing to say if they will renew the visas of correspondents and for blocking the websites of American-based news media.
“Innovation thrives where people breathe freely, speak freely, are able to challenge orthodoxy, where newspapers can report the truth without fear of consequences,” Mr. Biden said in a speech to an American business group.
At a meeting on Thursday with Beijing-based reporters from The New York Times and Bloomberg, Mr. Biden said that he warned Chinese leaders, in a formal session and over dinner, that there would be consequences for China, especially in the Congress, if it forced out the journalists. 

But he said Mr. Xi appeared unmoved, insisting that the authorities treated reporters according to Chinese law.
Between them, The Times and Bloomberg have nearly two dozen journalists whose visas are up for renewal by the end of the month, and China has declined to act on them.
The growing tension with China over its treatment of American news media outlets comes at a moment when Washington and Beijing are increasingly at odds and publicly more critical of each other than at any time in recent memory.
The Obama administration has refused to recognize China’s recently declared air defense identification zone over disputed territory with Japan — a subject that dominated Mr. Biden’s visit — and the countries have sparred over what Washington regards as the organized daily intrusion into United States government and industry computer systems by Chinese entities, mostly to steal intellectual property. 

A two-day summit meeting in June between President Obama and Mr. Xi, intended to calm the tensions, was followed by a series of actions that have accentuated the rivalry between the world’s established superpower and its fastest-rising competitor.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry, responding to Mr. Biden, said on Thursday that it managed foreign reporters “according to law and regulations.” 

A spokesman, Hong Lei, said, “As for foreign correspondents’ living and working environments in China, I think as long as you hold an objective and impartial attitude, you will arrive at the right conclusion.”
Chinese officials have all but said that American reporters know what they need to do to get their visas renewed: tailor their coverage.
The Times has been in regular contact with the Obama administration on the issue; with time running out on the current visas for its correspondents, repeated efforts to obtain new ones have so far been unsuccessful.
Jill Abramson, The Times’s executive editor, said in an interview that “unfettered coverage of China is a crucial issue” and that she was determined to continue “the highest quality journalism about China,” whether or not the visas were renewed. 

Asked about the Chinese argument that its authorities were enforcing laws that apply to all journalists in China, she noted, “Our laws make clear there is respect for freedom of expression.”
A spokesman for Bloomberg News declined to comment.
Over the decades, there have been periodic crackdowns on news organizations in China. 

But the pressure has increased since China emerged as the world’s second-largest economy, and scrutiny of its government and business practices — and Western-style investigative reporting — has led the Chinese government to both protest and threaten foreign news organizations.
Chinese officials have privately told reporters that the refusal to deal with their visa applications was linked to their reporting. 

Mr. Biden intervened during his trip, his aides said, partly out of a concern that Beijing might be trying to drive entire news bureaus — including The Times and Bloomberg — out of the country and harm their business prospects in one of the world’s most booming news markets.
Tensions worsened last year, after The Times and Bloomberg ran extensive articles about the wealth accumulated by the families of China’s leaders. 

In Washington, Chinese diplomats have also complained about coverage of Tibet, the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and reports linking units of China’s People’s Liberation Army to cyberattacks.
In his public comments, Mr. Biden offered no specifics about what kind of retaliation the United States government was considering.
But in interviews over several weeks, American officials have acknowledged that their options for pressuring the Chinese are limited. 

While they could cancel the visas of Chinese correspondents, one administration official said “that could be counterproductive, because we want more reporting about the United States to become available in China.”
Visa approvals for Chinese news media executives trying to visit the United States could be slowed, officials say, or the administration could initiate trade actions in response to China’s decision to block the English and Chinese-language websites of Western news organizations. 

Yet so far there appears to have been little work done on preparing such actions, and it is unclear whether they would succeed. 

American officials, for example, were stymied on how to help Google after it dropped its practice of censoring its own search-engine results, after a Chinese hacking attack on the company. 

Its share of the Chinese search market has plummeted to 3 percent.
Bloomberg’s English-language website was blocked after it published an article in June 2012 on the fortunes amassed by relatives of Mr. Xi. 

Sales of Bloomberg terminals dried up in China, and the government issued no further residency visas to Bloomberg reporters. 

Pressure from Beijing, some Bloomberg employees said, played a role in its decision not to publish a subsequent article investigating the ties between Wang Jianlin, one of China’s wealthiest men, and Communist Party leaders. 

Bloomberg’s editor in chief, Matthew Winkler, has insisted the article was not published because it was not ready.
The Times’s website, including its Chinese-language edition, has been blocked since October 2012, when the paper published articles about the enormous wealth accumulated by the family of Wen Jiabao, then in his last months as China’s prime minister. 

Traffic to the Chinese-language site has dropped substantially, the company has said, though a growing number of Chinese have learned to evade the electronic blockades.
Last month, the authorities also blocked access to an online Chinese-language lifestyle magazine started weeks earlier by The Times. 

The paper had just reported that JPMorgan Chase had paid $1.8 million to a consultancy secretly run by Mr. Wen’s daughter, Wen Ruchun, and that American prosecutors were examining ties between Ms. Wen and the bank as part of a bribery investigation. 

The government also stopped processing the visa applications of The Times’s journalists in China after that report.
While the United States has periodically intervened on behalf of specific journalists whose visas were denied or who were detained after visiting sensitive places or dissidents, Mr. Biden’s comments were the first time a senior American leader had publicly accused the Chinese of aiming at entire journalistic institutions. 

Until now, such issues have usually been dealt with quietly.
His decision to go public was a reflection, officials said, of the far more aggressive posture China has taken toward foreign journalists over the past two or three years. 

To some degree that reflects a shift in Chinese diplomacy: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Japan began its slow decline and a large international press corps began to migrate to Beijing and Shanghai, the Chinese often tried to court foreign reporters.
The turn can be traced to 2008, when many Chinese objected to foreign reporting of protests in Tibet, and what Chinese authorities felt was negative news media coverage of the 2008 Olympics, an event China saw as its coming-out party as the world’s rising great power. 

New, ad hoc restrictions began to be imposed, especially after 2011, when the Communist Party leadership feared that the Arab uprisings could sow unrest in China, and security authorities cracked down.
“It’s looking increasingly like as a media company you have a choice in China: You either do news or you do business,” said James McGregor, chairman of Greater China for APCO Worldwide, a consultancy, and former Beijing bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal. 

“But it’s hard to do both.”

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China's Threat: South Korea Plans to Expand Defense Zone

JONATHAN CHENG

SEOUL—South Korea pressed ahead with plans to expand its air-defense identification zone after a meeting with visiting U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Friday.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye shakes hands with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Friday.

As early as Sunday, Seoul says it will make a formal announcement about expanding its air defense zone, a direct response to China's recent move to create an air-defense identification zone in the East China Sea that has angered Japan, South Korea and the U.S.
Seoul is the only one of China's neighbors to respond in-kind following Beijing's unexpected announcement last month that it would require foreign aircraft to notify it when entering its new air-defense zone.
According to a statement issued by South Korea's presidential office, Mr. Biden acknowledged South Korean President Park Geun-hye's position on Korea's air defense zone.

Both sides agreed to continue discussing the matter, the statement said.
U.S. officials had no immediate account of the closed-door meeting, but shortly afterward, South Korea's foreign affairs and national security ministers convened to finalize plans for the new, expanded Korean zone.
In a briefing earlier on Friday, a spokesman for the defense ministry said that South Korea's newly-drawn expanded air-defense zone should cover a submerged reef claimed by both China and South Korea that falls within China's new air defense zone.
The submerged rock, known internationally as the Socotra Rock, is called Ieodo. South Korea runs a marine research station built on top of the rock.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said South Korea should keep to international laws and conventions in expanding its zone, adding that Beijing would stay in communication with Seoul.
Mr. Biden didn't refer to the plans for the enlarged South Korean air-defense zone in a speech at a Seoul university after his meeting with Ms. Park. 

However, he did repeat the U.S. position that it doesn't recognize the Chinese zone, while stopping short of calling on Beijing to repeal its air zone.
"We do not recognize the zone. It will have no effect on American operations—just ask my general," Mr. Biden said. "None. Zero."
In his speech, Mr. Biden called on South Korea, as well as Japan and China, to "lower the temperature" after several weeks of confusion and rhetoric on the region's various air defense zones.
"The possibility of miscalculation, a mistake, is real," he said, repeating recent calls by U.S. officials for better ties between Japan and South Korea, two U.S. allies that continue to bicker over historical and territorial disputes.
"The entire region will be more stable and more secure if the leading democracies—Japan, South Korea and the United States—are able to improve their relations and cooperation with one another," Mr. Biden said.

Mr. Biden's stop in Seoul, which concludes Saturday, wraps up a three-nation Asian tour that was originally planned to promote trade, but which has instead tested Washington's ability to keep tensions between China, Japan and South Korea from spilling over.

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How to Answer China's Aggression

A freshly aggressive tone from Beijing greets Joe Biden on his week-long trip to Asia.
By JOHN BOLTON

China's declaration on Nov. 23 of an air-defense identification zone over the Japanese Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea transformed Vice President Joe Biden's Asia trip this week. 

Mr. Biden's main objective in meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Abe on Tuesday was to assure him that America opposes China's belligerent, unilateral action in asserting the defense zone. 

Of course, if Mr. Abe really wants to know how the Obama administration treats close American allies, he can always call Bibi Netanyahu.
Although Mr. Biden publicly criticized the defense-zone announcement, he did not expressly reject it. Moreover, the administration earlier advised U.S. commercial airlines to notify China of flights into the zone, whereas Japan and South Korea told their airlines not to make such notifications. 

At the very best, these are mixed, and therefore dangerous, signals.
Beijing's new zone over the Senkaku islands, along with the government's broader territorial claims, is indicative of a much larger problem for the United States. 

For too long, American business and political leaders have accepted the notion that China is engaged in a "peaceful rise" to become a "responsible stakeholder" in world affairs, which we should placidly allow to happen. 

Instead of fantasizing about what China might become, it is far more sensible to consider what America's strategy should be under a range of possible scenarios. 

The rosy "peaceful rise" theory ignores countless other possibilities, particularly its polar opposite.

Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao, right, and U.S Vice President Joe Biden in Beijing on Wednesday.Associated Press

The People's Liberation Army remains the dominant force within the Communist Party, and the party remains the dominant political (and major economic) force in China. 

That explains Beijing's sustained increases in military budgets; its expanding nuclear and ballistic-missile arsenals; its unmatched cyberwarfare program; its construction of a blue-water navy; and its anti-satellite, anti-access and area-denial weapons systems. 

These aren't the marks of a "peaceful rise," especially combined with Beijing's aggressive territorial claims.
America urgently needs strategic thinking about China's radically different alternative futures. 

Simply ignoring the bad news won't work. 

Here are three building blocks for a more realistic U.S. strategy on China.

First, since China's principal theater of action for decades will be Asia, that must also be the focus of America's response. 

China's territorial claims, and now the air-defense zone, provide Washington with an enormous opportunity to maintain and expand its influence along China's periphery, from India to Japan. 

Whether we have the wit to exploit this opportunity remains to be seen.
Ideally, the U.S. would benefit from something akin to an alliance system among our friends and allies, currently a far-fetched goal given, for example, tensions between South Korea and Japan. 

Contemporary Japanese-Chinese disputes are mirrored in Seoul-Tokyo arguments over seemingly useless islands and reefs, reflecting even deeper historical grievances and animosities. 

Nonetheless, America alone can provide the support necessary to resist Chinese hegemonism, which essentially all Asian governments recognize. 

They would welcome a stronger, more visible, Washington role, even if they won't necessarily say so expressly in today's uncertain and dangerous environment.
Taiwan has an interesting potential role. 

Although its territorial claims mirror Beijing's, Taipei could gain substantial support for its unique status from its Asian neighbors, thereby reducing its international isolation, by distancing itself from China's current assertive posture. 

For example, Taiwan could say publicly that it does not recognize Beijing's defense-zone declaration, and that it wants to confer with Japan, South Korea and others to align their responses. 

So doing would serve notice that Taiwan won't accept being declared part of China's next power projection.

Second, China's military growth demonstrates persuasively why the U.S. can no longer countenance massive military-budget cuts. 

We need superior Pacific Ocean air and naval power to counter Chinese aggressiveness, but we also need capabilities in the Middle East, the North Atlantic and elsewhere against other potential threats.
Beijing doesn't have to match America's military capabilities world-wide to equal the U.S. off China's shores. Accordingly, allies who pulled their weight in meeting common-defense needs would certainly help. 

Most of Europe may be beyond redemption, but Japan is poised to resume a normal nation's full self-defense role, something Washington should welcome.

Third, the U.S. and its allies should press China to join a vigorous campaign to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by North Korea, Iran and others. 

Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities have fueled enormous concern in East Asia. 

While China has the heft to bring North Korea to heel, Beijing's persistent failure to do so signals that it is not as interested in solving the problem as its rhetoric indicates.
No wonder, therefore, that Tokyo and Seoul look to their own military capabilities, including missile defense, to protect themselves against Pyongyang and Beijing's growing nuclear arsenal as well. 

Nor has China's interest in Iran's oil reserves helped in containing Tehran's nuclear program.
Japan and Israel both live in the real world of threats and dangers, not in the Obama bubble where national-security issues rarely intrude on his efforts to reshape American society. 

But China's air-defense zone move has pierced the bubble, and Joe Biden's Asia trip could tell us if President Obama now gets it.

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Fighting Joe Biden vs. kowtowing David Cameron—a lesson from two China trips

By Heather Timmons and Lily Kuo

David Cameron plays ping pong with primary school kids during his trip to Chengdu. 
US vice president Joe Biden spent less than 48 hours in China this week, but managed to criticize its new air defense zone, China’s treatment of foreign journalists, and general lack of democracy. 

In contrast, David Cameron, who was in China for three days this week, played ping pong with school children, opened a Sina Weibo account and publicly avoided controversial topics. 

When he returned home he even said British schools should start teaching Mandarin.
The two visits couldn’t have been more different. 

Still, both approaches reaped scorn from media mouthpieces of the Chinese government as well as the general public, raising the question—What is the right diplomatic way to appeal to China? 

It appears no one really knows.
At the beginning of Biden’s China trip, the vice president was referred to as an “old friend” in China. 

But he made little effort to keep that name, expressing Washington’s ”firm position and expectations” on China’s air defense zone, which covers territories that both the Chinese and Japanese claim.
China’s foreign ministry said that Xi Jinping responded by saying the zone follows international law and that America should take an “objective and fair attitude.”

An editorial in the state-run Global Times further belittled Biden’s address in which he urged students to “challenge” government: “The episode of Biden propagating ‘democracy and freedom’ is just a ‘routine performance’ of any visiting American officials.”
Parts of the Chinese public, once taken with the vice president’s so-called “noodle diplomacy” of earlier visits, were not pleased either and took to Chinese social media to criticize Biden. 

One Sina Weibo user commented (registration required), “This old guy propagates the so-called universal value, and encourages the people to turn against their government… The police should arrest him.” 

Another said (registration required), “He harbors evil intent in his heart.”
Cameron, who arrived with over 100 businesspeople in hopes of drumming up trade and investment, aimed for charming China. 

He strolled along Shanghai’s riverside,chatting with Lisa Pan, vice president of one of Asia’s largest mobile gaming companies, Rekoo. 

While meeting Chinese officials pushed for for an EU-China free trade deal that few in the EU want—as well as Chinese investment in a British high-speed rail project that many in the UK don’t want.
Once again, the Global Times ran a scathing editorial, saying the Cameron administration should acknowledge “that the UK is not a big power in the eyes of the Chinese... It is just an old European country apt for travel and study.” 

On his newly opened Sina Weibo account, Cameron offered to answer questions from the Chinese public. He received questions that ranged from mocking—”Do you feel ashamed that London’s title of the foggy capital was stolen by Beijing?” to the offensive—”How many homosexuals are there in the UK?”
Cameron has promised to answer the questions in a video in a few days, but odds are the answers aren’t going to make anyone in China happy either.

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Biden Faults China on Foreign Press Crackdown

By MARK LANDLER

BEIJING — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. sharply criticized the Chinese government’s crackdown on the foreign press, telling an audience of American business people Thursday that the United States had “profound disagreements” with its “treatment of U.S. journalists.”
“Innovation thrives where people breathe freely, speak freely, are able to challenge orthodoxy, where newspapers can report the truth without fear of consequences,” Mr. Biden declared, a day after he met with President Xi Jinping on contentious security issues. 

Mr. Biden raised the issue of the government’s treatment of foreign reporters with Mr. Xi, a senior administration official said.
The Chinese authorities have held up renewing the accreditation of roughly two dozen correspondents from The New York Times and Bloomberg News in the wake of the publication of investigative articles about the wealth of the families of top Chinese leaders.
The government’s actions, which appear aimed at the news organizations rather than at individual reporters, threaten to shut down the China news bureaus of The Times and Bloomberg, as well as harm their business operations in the country.
Mr. Biden on Thursday kept up the public pressure on China over its declaration of an air defense zone in the contested waters of the East China Sea. 

The zone, which has drawn fierce protests from Japan and sowed fears of a clash between the two countries, was a major focus of the five and a half hours of meetings on Wednesday between Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi.
“China’s recent and sudden announcement of the establishment of a new air defense identification zone has, to state the obvious, caused significant apprehension in the region,” Mr. Biden said. 

“I was very direct about our firm position and our expectations in my conversation with Mr. Xi.”
Mr. Biden urged China to refrain from steps that would raise tensions and he said the Chinese government needed to communicate better with its neighbors to avoid accidents or miscalculation.

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Joe Biden mum on airspace tensions after meeting with Xi Jinping

By Josh Lederman

Xi Jinping (R) shake hands with Joe Biden (L) inside the Great Hall of the People on Wednesday in Beijing, China.

BEIJING -- Emerging from a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that U.S.-China relations depend on trust and a positive notion of each other's motives. 

Neither leader made public mention of a major clash over disputed airspace that's pitted China against the U.S. and its Asian allies.
Vice President Biden meets with China's president among other world leaders to discuss China's decision to declare an air defense identification zone that includes disputed islands.
Appearing somber and subdued, Biden said the relationship between the two major powers will significantly affect the course of the 21st century. 

If the U.S. and China can get that relationship right, the possibilities are limitless, Biden said as reporters were allowed in briefly after he met with Xi in Beijing.
"This new model of major country cooperation ultimately has to be based on trust and a positive notion about the motive of one another," Biden said.
Biden said he had come to Beijing because complex relationships require sustained engagement at high levels. 

He said Xi's candor and constructive approach had left an impression on him.
"Candor generates trust," Biden said after a meeting that ran more than an hour longer than scheduled. 

"Trust is the basis on which real change — constructive change — is made."
The two leaders had a second meeting involving larger delegations and a working dinner planned for later Wednesday.
Absent from Biden's comments was any discussion of U.S. concerns over China's new air defense zone. Only a day earlier, Biden pledged to raise those concerns "with great specificity" with Xi and other Chinese leaders, adding that China's move was deeply concerning.
"This action has raised regional tensions and increased the risk of accidents and miscalculation," Biden said in Tokyo Tuesday after meeting with Japanese President Shinzo Abe.
Japan has been on edge for the past two weeks since China unilaterally declared any planes flying through the zone must file flight plans with Beijing. 

The airspace sits atop tiny islands that are at the center of a long-running territorial dispute between China and Japan.
The U.S. refuses to recognize the zone, but Biden has avoided calling publicly for Beijing to retract it, wary of making demands that China is likely to snub. 

Rather, the vice president hoped to persuade China not to enforce the zone or establish similar zones over other disputed territories.
After meeting with Biden, Xi said the U.S.-China relationship had gotten off to a good start this year "and has generally maintained a momentum of positive development." 

But he said the global situation is changing, with more pronounced challenges and regional hotspots that keep cropping up.

"The world as a whole is not tranquil," Xi said through a translator, adding that the U.S. and China shoulder important responsibilities for upholding peace. 

"To strengthen dialogue and cooperation is the only right choice facing both of our countries."
Added Biden, "The way I was raised was to believe that change presents opportunity."
At the start of his visit to Beijing, Biden urged Chinese students to challenge orthodoxy and the status quo, drawing an implicit contrast between the authoritarian rule of China's government and the liberal, permissive intellectual culture he described in the United States.
"I hope you learn that innovation can only occur where you can breathe free, challenge the government, challenge religious leaders," Biden told young Chinese citizens waiting at the U.S. embassy to get visitor visas processed.
Biden said he hoped they would learn during their visit that "innovation can only occur where you can breathe free."
"Children in America are rewarded — not punished — for challenging the status quo," he said.
Biden's comments were not immediately reported by Chinese state media and were not likely to be widely known in China. 

A one-minute excerpt of his speech posted by the Sina news website included Biden's comment about challenging the "status quo," but left out the one about challenging the government.

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Biden Visit Leaves Tokyo Worried About American Muddle

The approach adopted by President Barack Obama’s White House seems feckless, raising frustration among those fearing China’s military advance.

By Yuka Hayashi and Toko Sekiguchi

Publicly, Japanese leaders are proclaiming U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s Asian swing a success, with the U.S. and Japan presenting a united front in the face of China’s latest territorial muscle-flexing.
Privately, many officials and security experts are growing frustrated about what they perceive to be Washington’s muddled response to China’s increasingly aggressive stance, a fear that has been exacerbated, rather than alleviated, so far during Mr. Biden’s visit to Asia.
Even as he stated the U.S. doesn’t recognize China’s new “air defense identification zone,” Mr. Biden also said the U.S. was “deeply concerned” about China’s unilateral decision, which some in Japan interpreted as an expression that tacitly acknowledged that Beijing would continue to press forward with its steps.
There also appears to be mixed message about whether or not the allies want to push China to pull back its move. 

Japan has demanded China rescind its new ADIZ, but has not explicitly asked the U.S. to do the same because of the perception that such a request would appear to be inappropriate meddling in American policy. 

Earlier this week, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said the Obama administration did want China to “rescind” the zone, but Mr. Biden did not use that word during his visit to Tokyo — an omission noted in the Japanese news media.
And even before Mr. Biden’s trip — which started in Japan Monday might, moved to China on Wednesday, and continues Thursday to South Korea — officials in Tokyo were annoyed by confusing messages from the U.S. government related to whether commercial airlines should file flight plans with China to comply with its new aviation rules. 

That has resulted in U.S. carriers filing such plans, while their Japanese counterparts have been discouraged by their government to do the same.
“Recent U.S. interactions with China, including its response to a contested air defense zone, seem to suggest a disaccord within Washington that may be encouraging Beijing,” the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, a leading economic daily, said in its editorial Thursday. 

“To some, the approach adopted by President Barack Obama’s White House seems feckless, raising frustration among those fearing China’s military advance".
And Mr. Biden’s new call on Tokyo and Beijing to establish an emergency response mechanism to avoid unintended accidents has also some in Japan worried that such a system would be designed to reflect China’s desire to assert further its claim on the East China Sea Islands contested by the two countries, rather than Japan’s position that the islands belonged to Japan.
Efforts to create an emergency communications system have taken place in fits and starts, with Tokyo taking the initiative, Japanese officials have said. 

But now under the renewed pressure of the new ADIZ, some in Japan are worried China would try to exert more influence in the process, while Washington, with its priority on avoiding the escalation of tensions, would be willing to accommodate such a move. 

“We are in a very difficult position,” one Japanese government official said.
But officials in public play down such concerns. 

Japan’s chief government spokesman was asked directly at his Thursday news conference if there was any gap between how the two allies were handling China’s move. 

“I don’t believe there is at all,” Yoshihide Suga told reporters. 

“Vice President Biden, during his Japan visit, reaffirmed that Japan and the U.S. stand together in our opinion of the matter. During his talk with the Prime Minister, the vice president was clear that the U.S. does not acknowledge China’s ADIZ, and that it may lead to unforeseen events in the region.”

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China's behavior has been unsettling to neighbors: U.S. officials

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Recent actions by China concerning air space over the East China Sea have worried its neighbors and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will raise the issue during a visit to Beijing next week, senior U.S. administration officials said on Wednesday.
Biden is due to visit China, Japan and South Korea during a week-long trip. 

He will seek to de-escalate tensions heightened after China demanded that airplanes flying near contested islands identify themselves to Chinese authorities, officials said.
In a phone call with his Japanese counterpart on Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reaffirmed that the U.S.-Japanese defense treaty covers the small island group where China established a new airspace defense zone last week.
Hagel "commended the Japanese government for exercising appropriate restraint" following China's announcement and pledged to consult closely with Tokyo to avoid unintended incidents around the islands, a Pentagon spokesman said.
China recently declared identification rules for planes passing through the new airspace defense zone, raising the stakes in a territorial standoff between Beijing and Tokyo over the contested islands.
Defying those orders, two unarmed U.S. B-52 bombers flew over the islands on Tuesday without informing Beijing and flights of Japan's main airline similarly ignored Chinese authorities while flying through that air space.
"The visit to China to create an opportunity for the vice president to discuss directly with policy makers in Beijing this issue to convey our concerns directly and to seek clarity regarding Chinese intentions," a senior administration official told reporters.
"It also allows the vice president to make the broader point that there's an emerging pattern of behavior that is unsettling to China's own neighbors, and raising questions about how China operates in international space and how China deals with areas of disagreement with its neighbors," the official said.
Biden will not be making a demand on a specific issue but rather will raise the topic as part of talks spanning a range of themes, the official added.

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