WASHINGTON (AP) — While the Obama administration is making diplomatic progress on some of the Mideast’s thorniest security issues, problems are piling up in Asia, a region that President Barack Obama had wanted to play a bigger part in American foreign policy.

Despite efforts to forge deeper ties with China to make East Asia more stable, Beijing’s declaration of a maritime air defense zone has escalated its territorial dispute with U.S. ally Japan. The U.S. responded by flying B-52 bombers through the zone on a training mission Tuesday without informing Beijing.