The agenda for this week's scheduled visit to Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul by Joe Biden, America's vice-president, was hijacked before he got there. America had already given a clear signal of its opposition to a new Air Defence Identification Zone (adiz) in the East China Sea announced by China on November 23rd. It had sent two B-52 bombers through the new zone without notification. Mr Biden's visit became a chance to calm things down. In Tokyo Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, had hoped that his American ally would call for China's adiz to be scrapped. Its imposition was seen as a sharp escalation of China's dispute with Japan over islets that Japan calls the Senka-kus and China the Diaoyus. The adiz also covers territory claimed by South Korea, and overlaps with both countries' own air identification zones.
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