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Even as China scrambled fighter jets to enforce its newly declared air defence zone, the Obama administration said on Friday that it was advising American commercial airlines to comply with China's demands to be notified in advance of flights through the area.
While the United States continued to defy China by sending military planes into the zone unannounced, administration officials said they had made the decision to urge civilian planes to adhere to Beijing's new rules in part because they worried about an unintended confrontation.
Although the officials made clear that the administration rejects China's unilateral declaration of control of the airspace over a large area of the East China Sea, the guidance to the airlines could be interpreted in the region as a concession in the battle of wills with China.
"The US government generally expects that US carriers operating internationally will operate consistent with" notice requirements "issued by foreign countries," the State Department said in a statement, adding that that "does not indicate US government acceptance of China's requirements."
The decision contrasted with that of Japan's government this week, when it asked several Japanese airlines, which were voluntarily following China's rules, to stop, apparently out of fear that complying with the rules would add legitimacy to Chinese claims to islands that sit below the now contested airspace. China's newly declared zone, experts say, is intended mainly to whittle away at Japan's hold on the islands, which it has long administered.
On Saturday, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said, "We will not comment on what other countries are doing with regard to filing flight plans." It was not immediately clear if the Obama administration had notified Japan, a close ally, of its decision.
An official at Japan's Transport Ministry said it had no immediate change to its advice to Japanese airlines.
The American decision drew criticism from some quarters. Stephen Yates, a former Asia adviser to Dick Cheney when he was vice president, said it was "a bad move" that would undercut allies in the region that take a different stance.
But Strobe Talbott, a former deputy secretary of state under Bill Clinton and now president of the Brookings Institution, said it was important to avoid an accident while drawing a firm line. "The principal option is to be extremely clear that disputes" over territory "must be resolved through diplomacy and not unilateral action," he said.
American officials said they began having talks with airlines on Wednesday and characterised the guidance Friday as simply following established international air protocols independent of any political deliberations. The American announcement came on the same day that Chinese state news media said that China sent jets aloft and that they identified two American surveillance planes and 10 Japanese aircraft in the air defence zone the country declared last weekend.
Although there was no indication that China's air force showed any hostile intent, the move raised tensions. The Chinese had also sent jets on patrol into the contested airspace the day before, but Xinhua, the state-run news agency, indicated that the planes on Friday were scrambled specifically to respond to foreign jets in the area.
Earlier in the week, the United States sent unarmed B-52s into the area, and they proceeded unimpeded. China then appeared to back down somewhat from its initial declaration that planes must file advance flight plans or face possible military action.
The administration's decision on Friday underscored the delicate position President Obama finds himself in, drawn into a geopolitical dispute that will test how far he is willing to go to contain China's rising regional ambitions.
China's move thrust the United States into the middle of the already prickly territorial clash between Beijing and Tokyo, a position the administration had avoided for months even while reiterating that the mutual defence treaty with Japan covers the islands. After the Chinese declaration last weekend, American officials feared that, if left unchallenged, the Chinese action would lead to ever greater claims elsewhere in the Pacific region.
But with planes flying so fast and in such proximity, the administration's worries grew that an accident or an unintended confrontation could spiral out of control.
A midair collision between a Chinese fighter jet and an American spy plane off the coast of China in 2001 killed the fighter pilot and forced the spy plane to make an emergency landing on Hainan Island, setting off a diplomatic episode until Beijing released the American crew and sent the plane back, broken into parts.
"The challenge here, as with April 2001, is when you have an unexpected crisis, things escalate very, very quickly without any plans for de-escalation," said Jon M Huntsman Jr, Obama's first ambassador to China. "That's one of the big challenges we have in the US-China relationship."
One of the biggest challenges for Obama will be navigating the complicated personalities of leaders in Tokyo and Beijing. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, a strong nationalist, has vowed to stand firm against any Chinese encroachments, while President Xi Jinping of China has recently taken over as leader and has promised to advance a strong foreign policy meant to win his country more recognition as an international power.
The two countries have been at odds for years over the uninhabited islands known as Diaoyu by the Chinese and Senkaku by the Japanese. The United States does not take a position on the dispute.
Although administration officials believe China's actions are mainly meant to give it an advantage in its struggle with Japan over the islands, experts on Asia say they also fit China's larger goal of establishing itself as the dominant power in the region, displacing the United States.
Administration officials said they decided to proceed with routine military training and surveillance flights so as not to legitimise China's assertion of control over the airspace or encourage it to establish a similar air zone over the South China Sea, where it has other territorial disputes. China had said it expected to set up other air defence zones, and experts said they expected one to cover that sea.
"We don't want this to be the first in what would be a series of assertive moves," said an administration official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a delicate diplomatic matter. "The whole area's fraught."
Obama is sending Vice President Joseph R Biden Jr to the region next week, when he will meet with Xi and Abe as well as South Korea's leader. Although the trip was previously scheduled, it will put Biden in the center of the dispute, and aides said he would deliver a message of caution to both sides to avoid escalation.
Many countries, including the United States and Japan, have air defence zones, but the coordinates of the Chinese zone overlap those of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
Peter Dutton, the director of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the United States Naval War College, said the new air zone also gives China a legal structure to intercept American surveillance flights in international airspace, which have long irritated Beijing. "It is clear that the Chinese do not seek regional stability on any level," he said. "They intend to be disruptive in order to remake the Asian regional system in accordance with their preferences."
© 2013 The New York Times News Service
