Panetta to urge China and Japan to tone down dispute over islands
A succession of highly charged territorial disputes between China and U.S. allies in Asia is threatening to drag Washington into unpredictable security flare-ups despite the Obama administration’s efforts to ease tensions.
On Sunday, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta arrived in Tokyo as part of a week-long visit to the region and said he would urge both Chinese and Japanese leaders to tone down a brewing political crisis over some uninhabitated islands in the East China Sea. The conflict comes after a similar dispute erupted this spring between China and the Philippines over some contested islets.
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