US opts for gentle persuasion in South China Sea flap HIROYUKI AKITA, Nikkei senior staff writer

US opts for gentle persuasion in South China Sea flap

HIROYUKI AKITA, Nikkei senior staff writer

U.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, foreground, attend the U.S.-China summit in March. © Reuters

TOKYO -- After an international tribunal rejected China's claims to historic and economic rights in most of the South China Sea last month, Joe Biden made a rare move for a U.S. vice president by attending vice-ministerial-level talks -- in this case, with the vice foreign ministers of Japan and South Korea. But more surprises were in store at the Hawaii meetup.

At the beginning of the trilateral talks, Biden spent about 50 minutes touching upon some of the pointed exchanges he had with Chinese President Xi Jinping in their 2013 meeting -- an element of the discussions that had so far been kept under wraps.

During that meeting in China in early December 2013, Biden criticized Beijing's unilateral declaration of an air defense identification zone in the East China Sea. Just a month earlier, China had begun monitoring flights of foreign aircraft over a vast stretch of ocean, including those in disputed areas.

According to Biden, Xi responded to the complaint by asking what the U.S. vice president expected him to do.

Biden said he did not have any concrete ideas, but warned the Chinese leader not to expect the U.S. to accept China's move. The vice president pointed out that the U.S. had already flown a B-52 bomber within the special zone without notifying Beijing in advance and would continue doing so. Despite Beijing's protests, that is exactly what the U.S. military has done.

By revealing the details of his meeting with Xi, Biden wanted to clearly communicate Washington's policy of rejecting China's unilateral actions in the region. The U.S. government has also, according to sources, secretly warned China that it would take strong action to counter any moves by Beijing to declare a similar air defense identification zone over disputed areas of the South China Sea.

Gentle approach

During the meeting of foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Laos last week, the U.S., working with Japan, put pressure on China to accept the tribunal's ruling.

Nevertheless, Washington's reactions to the tribunal's decision have been, by and large, moderate.

President Barack Obama, for example, has refrained from referring to the ruling. And sources say that many in the Defense Department are cautions about increasing military pressure on China right now.