China’s grab for airspace

A tense territorial standoff between Japan and China overshadowed Vice President Joe Biden’s tour this week of East Asia, where he sought to ease hostilities over China’s controversial new claim to airspace in the East China Sea. In Tokyo, Biden said he was “deeply concerned” by China’s sudden decision last week to impose an “air defense identification zone” that encompassed the Japanese-administered islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

The Obama administration responded immediately to China’s assertion by sending two B-52 bombers through the zone and reaffirming its treaty obligation to aid Japan if it were attacked, though the Federal Aviation Administration subsequently advised American carriers to comply with new regulations by identifying themselves to Chinese authorities before entering the airspace. Biden this week called on Japan and China to open communications. “The only conflict that is worse than one that is intended is one that is unintended,” he said. After Biden arrived in Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry declared the airspace a fact, but “a zone of cooperation, not confrontation.”

“This is just the beginning,” said Michael Auslin in Politico.com. Beijing has correctly gambled that the U.S. is too squeamish to oppose its regional ambitions. As a result, “free aerial passage through international skies over one of the world’s busiest air corridors” has ended, and China has won a major victory. President Obama should be sending flying fighters and bombers through the air zone in “daily shows of force.”

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China has hardly won this showdown, said Max Fisher in -WashingtonPost.com. In fact, its gambit “backfired, embarrassing China while further uniting Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. against Chinese military assertiveness.” Communist leaders took this foolish step to drum up hate against Japan and distract the population from China’s growing domestic problems: “environmental degradation, dire food safety,” and rampant corruption.

America should steer clear of this conflict, said James Fallows in TheAtlantic.com. A struggle between Japan and China “puts the U.S. in a lose-lose predicament.” Washington is deeply connected to both countries, but still obliged to defend Japan. We were right to send in the B-52s to defend existing airspace rules. But now we should “want this fight to go away.”