Can China and US seize the chance for compromise at Strategic and Economic Dialogue?

The US is hosting high-level talks with China today and tomorrow to address their growing array of differences. The teams, led by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese state councillor Yang Jiechi , are set to discuss China's reclamation activities in the South China Sea and the possibility of Beijing declaring an air defence identification zone there. Here are a few things the teams might consider.

The zone decision depends most of all on whether China decides it needs it to protect its national security. In an ironic twist, that in turn depends on the military activities of the US. The major aerial threat to China's national security from the South China Sea is America's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance flights off the mainland coast.

Although the aircraft stay outside China's 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, these are not all passive intelligence collection activities. They include active probing, listening and even interference with Chinese military communications, as well as the tracking of its new nuclear submarines.

China believes the 2001 EP-3 and the 2014 Poseidon P-8 South China Sea incidents resulted from an "abuse of rights" and were thus illegal US behaviour. Moreover, if the P-8 dropped sonobuoys into the water in its search for the submarines, China could argue that it violated the consent regime for marine scientific research under the UN Convention on Law of the Sea. The point is that if it were not for America's probes, China might not need to consider declaring an air defence zone.

The US performs the same intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities over the East China Sea. But China may view the South China Sea situation as different from that of the East China Sea, where it has already declared an air defence zone.

In the East China Sea, its zone overlaps those of South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, and includes the China-claimed but Japan-administered Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. This sovereignty dispute brings two visceral enemies face to face. Although there have been strong international objections to China's declaration of the zone there, it is not "illegal" in and of itself or without precedent. It was probably, in part, motivated by a desire to "level the legal playing field" vis-à-vis Japan's claims and previous actions in the disputed area.

China and Japan are major powers. The US is involved through its publicly declared willingness to come to its ally's aid if attacked. In China's view, it is an increasingly nationalistic and aggressive Japan that has altered the status quo by "nationalising" the disputed islands and even threatening to shoot down China's drones in the disputed area. Japan refuses to even acknowledge that there is a dispute, infuriating China. Worse, Japan is now considering participating in aerial surveillance of the South China Sea.