RAPPLER | East China Sea Dispute a delicate task for Bide

Vice President Joseph Biden arrived in Tokyo as Japan is locked in a tense standoff with China over airspace. The New York Times reported, Biden needs to repair a “perceived disconnect” between Washington’s and Tokyo’s response to China’s new airspace imposition. China recently declared an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) rule that requires all planes passing through the disputed East China Sea to file a flight plan with Beijing. In protest, the Obama administration sent two unarmed B-52 bombers on a mission through the zone, but air regulation officials advised American civilian flights to comply. The move was seen by some in Japan as a mixed message, since the Japanese government had told its airlines to ignore the Chinese demand. The NYT quoted a senior administration official saying, “It constitutes a unilateral change to the status quo in the region, a region that is already fraught.”