Washington - US President Barack Obama makes his first trip to Asia with a heaping helping of intractable issues on his plate: a sluggish economy, global warming and the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea. Climate change will be high on the agenda when Obama arrives next week in China for three days of talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao as he tries to forge an agreement on cutting greenhouse gases ahead of December's crucial Copenhagen summit.
North Korea's reluctance to return to six-nation negotiations on its nuclear activities is likely to play prominently in the meeting, along with the fragile state of the world economy. US officials said Obama plans to bring up human rights, too.
While most eyes will be on the meeting between the two major powers, Obama will first stop Friday in Japan for critical talks with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party came to power two months ago seeking a more equal role in US-Japanese relations.
Hatoyama has said he wants to review all aspects of the alliance and has raised the possibility of altering a 2006 agreement to force the US military to relocate the Futenma Air Base on Okinawa. The US has rejected moving the base, and the dispute could cast a shadow over a trip that Obama wants to use to reaffirm the importance of cooperation with Tokyo.
Meanwhile, the relationship between the United States and the communist government in Beijing remains strained. Kenneth Lieberthal, director of the Brookings Institution's China Centre, said the mutual lack of trust is most evident on climate and energy, a long-term issue that requires confidence-building measures on both sides.
The US and China are the world's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, and Obama's trip comes amid increasing gloom and diminishing expectations for the UN's climate summit, being held December 7-18 in Copenhagen.
White House officials said they expect some of the most significant progress during Obama's trip to come on clean energy, where the two powers hope to expand cooperation on developing technologies needed for both countries to cut their pollution levels.
But the US is increasingly viewed as a major obstacle to reaching a new global climate treaty in Copenhagen. The European Union has recently stepped up criticism of the Obama administration, and Japan will press the US after Hatoyama reversed Tokyo's long-standing policy by promising to cut the country's own emissions 25 per cent by 2020.
Obama has pledged to curb US emissions 20 per cent by 2020. His administration has u
