US Vice President Joe Biden was already scheduled to visit Japan, China, and South Korea to discuss economic issues.  But China’s recent grab of a vast swath of the East China Sea as its Air Defense Zone – and the US Military’s defiance – has taken over the top of the agenda.

A day after flying two unarmed B-52 bombers through the airspace, the White House says Biden will use a visit to Beijing to discuss in person China’s unilateral declaration of an expanded air defense zone over the East China Sea.  Biden will discuss “lowering tensions and advancing diplomacy” while impressing on President Xi Jinping that “there is an emerging pattern of behavior unsettling to China’s neighbors” – both staunch allies whom the US has vowed to defend.

“China is busy designing and implementing a bolder foreign policy in light of an anticipated U.S. decline,” Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, director of Asia-Pacific programs at the US Institute of Peace.  There was no sign of a decline this week.

China had demanded that flights passing through the air defense zone announce themselves and file their flight plans.  The B-52s didn’t ask for permission, and didn’t comply with the Chinese demands.  After news of the flights emerged, the Chinese defense ministry responded cautiously, saying it had monitored the planes' activity on the edge of the air defense zone.  The statement held back from criticizing the US action.

Japanese passenger airlines initially planned to give the information to China as their planes passed from Japan to Okinawa and Taiwan, but have pulled back that acquiescence.

The unprecedented unilateral Air Defense Zone declaration includes the Senkaku Islands, which are surrounded by rich fishing as well as undersea oil and gas resources.  Japan has controlled the Senkakus for more than a century.