The US President Mr George W Bush will travel to Japan, South Korea and China in October, the White House said today.
The White House also said Mr Bush would add a stop in Beijing to his China visit, in addition to previously disclosed plans to visit Shanghai for a summit of Asian-Pacific nations.
Mr Bush also announced today that he intended to visit Ireland sometime during his term in office.
The last US president to visit China was Mr Bill Clinton in July 1998, a visit which mixed the pomp of an official visit to Beijing with stops in provincial cities driving China's economic emergence.
But Mr Clinton's Republican critics, who maintain the former president was too soft on China, savaged his administration for not scheduling a stop in Japan, a close US ally, on that trip.
Mr Bush vowed in his election campaign to take a tough line with Beijing and to reinvigorate Washington's relations with Tokyo.