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China has been building up its military strength for some time now, and pushing ever farther from its coastline and into international waters. The real concern now is for miscalculation — particularly with Japan — that ends up in gunfire.

Just six months ago, the Pentagon released its annual report on China's military. Its defense budget was growing. The country was building more stealthy aircraft and submarines. It even bought an aircraft carrier from the Ukraine.

Pentagon official David Helvey highlighted particular areas of concern.

"In recent years, China has begun to demonstrate a more routine and capable presence in both the South and East China seas, which has increased regional anxieties over China's intentions," he said in May.

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Vice President Joe Biden met with China's president in Beijing Wednesday, in a trip to Asia that has often touched on growing tensions over China's new air defense identification zone.

Biden's two-day visit to China was planned before the country's defense officials surprised neighboring Japan by declaring a defense zone in an area contested by the two countries. The topic of the air zone likely helped extend a closed-door session that had been scheduled for 45 minutes to its actual length of two hours.

"At the U.S. embassy here, Biden enthusiastically challenged Chinese visa applicants to think outside the box and challenge their own government. Chinese may find his remarks inflammatory," NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Beijing. "Hours later, though, Biden sounded hoarse as he spoke to President Xi Jinping about the need for trust between Beijing and Washington."

In public remarks in the Great Hall of the People that were separate from their closed meeting, Biden said, "As we've discussed in the past, this new model of major country cooperation ultimately has to be based on trust and a positive notion about the motive of one another."

After China's declared its control over the airspace, the U.S., Japan, and South Korea have said that they do not recognize the claim. Within days, several aircraft — including two U.S. bombers — defied China's requirement that all planes identify themselves.

As we reported yesterday, Biden said during a visit to Japan that the U.S. is "deeply concerned" about the air defense zone.

European regulators have fined eight large banks a total of more than $2 billion over an illegal cartel scheme to fix interest rates. The fine, the largest ever issued in such a case by the European Union, comes after a two-year investigation into banks' collusion. And the inquiry isn't yet complete.

Two American banks — JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup — are included in the list of financial institutions fined as part of a settlement deal. Several banks that cooperated with investigators saw their fines reduced or eliminated.

"Barclays received full immunity for revealing the existence of the cartel and thereby avoided a fine of around 690 million euros [$938 million] for its participation in the infringement," according to a news release from the EU.

Similarly, UBS also received immunity from what would have been a fine of around 2.5 billion euros — about $3.4 billion — in return for its cooperation.

For NPR's Newscast unit, Teri Schultz reports from Brussels:

"EU regulators found traders at some of the world's largest banks joined forces to manipulate borrowing rates, the euro interbank offered rate, or Euribor, and London interbank offered rate, or Libor. A record fine of about $2.3 billion dollars will be shared among eight institutions including Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland.

"EU competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia says if the public could hear the conversations between traders found to be manipulating benchmark interest rates they would be 'appalled.'

" 'They discussed confidential, commercial and sensitive information that they are not allowed to share with other market players according to the antitrust rules,' Almunia says.

"Almunia says today's fines are not the 'end of the story,' as regulators continue their investigations."

As it has done for the past 16 years, the Embassy of Norway decorated a Christmas tree at Union Station in Washington, D.C. — a gift to the American people to say thanks for helping Norway during World War II.

This year is no different. The tree was lit in a ceremony Tuesday evening, but what stands out is the nature of the ornaments that adorn the artificial tree: In addition to small American and Norwegian flags, the tree is decked out with 700 shining decorations with the iconic image from Norwegian Edvard Munch's painting The Scream.

This month marks the 150th anniversary of Munch's birth, and Norway's ambassador to Washington, Kare Aas, told All Things Considered's Melissa Block the artist is being feted across the world.

"As you know, The Scream is one of Edvard Munch's masterpieces," Aas says.

Munch's painting of a ghostly figure pressing his hands to his cheeks, mouth open to deliver the nominal utterance and cowering against a swirling orange-skied backdrop is one of the most recognizable artworks in existence. It's been parodied by Andy Warhol and The Simpsons, and the image has been on the receiving end of psychological diagnoses — depersonalization disorder, according to the New York Times — and society's generalized anxieties.

The image may seem a decidedly unfestive choice to whip up Christmas spirit, but Aas says that the dread implicit in Munch's screaming figure is perhaps not far off from how many anticipate the upcoming holiday.

"Sometimes, you know, when I prepare for Christmas, I really feel like I am scared from time to time and that it is too hectic," Aas tells Block. "The Scream symbolizes an angst which some people have before Christmas."

That aside, Munch's Scream has become one of the priciest pieces of art ever sold. Last year, a version of the painting — Munch made four of them — sold for nearly $120 million, making it the most expensive artwork sold at auction at the time. (That superlative now belongs to Francis Bacon's 1969 triptych, Three Studies of Lucian Freud, which sold for more than $142 million in November.)

The Scream-ornamented tree at Union Station will be on display through December. So, what do you do with 700 Scream ornaments when the tree comes down? They'll be given as gifts, according to Aas. He says they could be used as reflectors when walking at night, perhaps. "We're always very practical, the Norwegians," the ambassador says.