U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, gestures during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, right center, at Abe's official residence in Tokyo Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013. Biden, who is on the first leg of his three-nation Asian tour, met Abe, whose government is pressing the U.S. to more actively take Japan's side in an escalating dispute over China's new air defense zone above a set of contested islands in the East China Sea. (AP Photo/Toru Yamanaka, Pool)