US president Barack Obama arrived in Tokyo today for a summit in which the two allies will seek to ease strained security ties.
Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama said today he and Mr Obama had agreed at the summit to start a review of their five-decade alliance, which now confronting new challenges as both countries adapt to a rising China.
Tokyo is the first stop in a nine-day Asian tour that takes Mr Obama to Singapore for an Asia-Pacific summit, to China for talks on climate change and trade imbalances, and to South Korea, where Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions will be in focus.
Washington's relations with Mr Hatoyama's government, which has promised to oversee a diplomatic course less dependent on its long-time ally and forge closer ties with Asia, are frayed by a dispute over a US military base.
Mr Obama and Mr Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party defeated its long-dominant rival in an August election, were expected to turn down the heat in the row over the US Marines' Futenma air base on southern Okinawa island. The base is a key part of a realignment of the 47,000 US troops in Japan.
"I want to make this a summit that shows the importance of Japan-US relations in a global context," Mr Hatoyama told reporters on Friday morning ahead of Mr Obama's arrival.
Assuaging anxiety and beginning to define a new direction for the five-decade-old alliance will be a difficult task.
Mr Hatoyama says he wants to begin a review of the security ties formalised in 1960 with the aim of broadening ties longer term and a senior US official said Mr Obama shared that desire.
"Both leaders, I predict, will focus on 2010, next year, and the 50th anniversary of the US-Japan Mutual Cooperation and Security Treaty," a senior US official said.
However, no breakthroughs are likely in the feud over Futenma during Obama's visit, although Mr Hatoyama said yesterday he would tell the US leader that Japan wanted to resolve the issue soon.
Reuters