Biden heads to South Korea, wrapping up tense East Asia tour

Vice President Joe Biden traveled to South Korea on Thursday on the final leg of a three-country tour of Asia that has focused on security concerns and worsening territorial disputes in the region.

Biden's visit came amid regional tensions over China's self-proclamed expanded air defense zone, as well as overlapping claims of ownership of a handful of islands by China and Japan.

Biden touched down at a U.S. military base south of Seoul after stops this week in China and Japan. He planned to meet on Friday with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, then deliver a major speech at Yonsei University about the United States’ Asia policy and the U.S.-Korea relationship.

Before returning to Washington on Saturday, Biden was set to lay a wreath at a ceremony honoring fallen U.S. troops, and to visit the Demilitarized Zone between South Korea and North Korea.

Concerns about North Korea's nuclear program were a major topic earlier in the week when Biden met for more than five hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. China is North Korea's only major ally.

The two leaders strategized about how to increase pressure on the North in hopes of persuading Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons, senior Obama administration officials said. These officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment by name.

Adding to tensions on the peninsula are U.S. concerns about an 85-year-old American tourist that Pyongyang has been detaining for more than a month. Meanwhile, South Korea's spy agency believes that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's powerful uncle may have been dismissed from his posts last month, and two of his aides publicly executed, as Kim consolidates his power.

It has not been possible to independently confirm the claim.

Xi and Biden also traded strong arguments Wednesday over China's contentious new air defense zone, with little indication of progress toward defusing a situation that is raising anxieties across Asia and beyond.

Though Biden made clear the deep concern of the U.S. and other countries during the 5 1/2 hours of talks – themselves highly unusual for an American vice president and Chinese president – Xi vigorously made his case, too, for China's declaration of new rules concerning a strip of airspace more than 600 miles long above disputed islands in the East China Sea.

Speaking to American business leaders here the next morning, Biden said he had been "very direct" about the firm U.S. position and Washington's expectations for Beijing in his conversation with Xi.

"China's recent and sudden announcement of a new air defense identification zone has, to state the obvious, caused significant apprehension in the region," Biden said.

Biden also took China to task this week over its controls on the media.

Biden met with U.S. journalists working in Beijing Thursday after publicly criticizing how they are treated by China's government.

Closing a two-day trip to Beijing, Biden listened to concerns from journalists who may be forced to leave China in what some have perceived as retaliation for stories that have reflected poorly on the government.

U.S. news organizations have said China's actions could have a chilling effect on hard-hitting journalism and the ability of American reporters to operate in the country.

"Innovation thrives where people breathe freely, speak freely, are able to challenge orthodoxy, where newspapers can report the truth without fear of consequences," Biden said earlier Thursday as he addressed U.S. business executives in Beijing.

"We have many disagreements, and some profound disagreements, on some of those issues right now, in the treatment of U.S. journalists."

Despite recent tensions over territorial disputes and other issues between Japan, South Korea and China, the three countries have still managed to come together on the important matter of nuclear security in the region.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the three countries agreed on the framework of a deal that would require each to alert the other via phone and email when there is a nuclear accident.

The three countries will set up special email accounts for such a purpose, and exchange information on a regular basis. Video-conferencing may also be added later. Any accident above a Level 2 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, as well as level 1 accidents “of an interest to the public” would require notification, The Journal reported.

The Associated Press