Obama set to launch debut Asia tour; first stop is Japan

Obama will take a precious week out of his bid to enact an ambitious domestic agenda to show the region, and a rising China, that Washington is no longer distracted by crises elsewhere.

He will travel first to Japan for talks Friday with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, then attend the weekend's APEC summit in Singapore and become the first U.S. president to sit down with all 10 leaders of ASEAN, including Myanmar.

Obama will next visit Shanghai, and fly on to Beijing for a state dinner and talks with President Hu Jintao, then wrap up his tour in South Korea.

“It's a common perception in the region that U.S. influence has been on the decline in the last decade, while Chinese influence has been increasing,” said Obama's top East Asia aide Jeffrey Bader.

“One of the messages that the president will be sending in his visit is that we are an Asia-Pacific nation and we are there for the long haul.”

The White House is stressing that Obama, who grew up in Hawaii and spent a number of childhood years in Indonesia, is familiar, and to some extent shares an Asian worldview on some issues.

Obama aides say the previous Bush administration saw ties with Asia through the prism of their global war on terror, and neglected its Asian relationships.

As China expanded its clout, U.S. influence suffered from the spending and borrowing binge that triggered the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.

Yet for all the talk of a diminished role, Washington remains a player.

The United States is a guarantor of Asian security, with a combined 75,000 troops in South Korea and Japan and the Seventh Fleet prowling regional waters.

While the dollar is humbled and the U.S. economy wounded, a consumer-led American recovery would revive vast export markets for Asian nations.

But Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner suggested that Washington is also looking to its Asian trading partners to power demand in the meantime.

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