Airspace Claim Forces Obama to Flesh Out China Strategy

By MARK LANDLER, NYT

WASHINGTON — While foreign-policy experts and risk analysts were riveted by the nuclear talks with Iran last weekend, the next major geopolitical crisis erupted a world away, over a clump of desolate islands in the choppy waters between Japan and China.

With the United States dispatching two B-52s to reinforce its protest over China’s attempt to control the airspace over the islands, it served as a timely reminder that President Obama wants to turn America’s gaze eastward, away from the preoccupations of the Middle East.

Mr. Obama’s shift — once known as a pivot, now rebranded as a rebalance — has always seemed more rhetorical than real. But when Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. travels to China, Japan and South Korea next week, the administration will have another chance to flesh out the policy.

“What isn’t clear to me is whether they see this as a Japan-China problem that needs to be managed or as part of a longer-term test of wills with Beijing,” said Michael J. Green, an Asia adviser in the administration of President George W. Bush who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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