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Updated Friday, November 13, 2009 3:20 pm TWN, By Stephen Collinson, AFP

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

“As U.S. households save more and the U.S. reduces its fiscal deficit, others must spur greater growth of private demand in their own economies,” Geithner said in an op-ed co-authored with his counterparsts from Indonesia and Singapore and published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal.

The Obama factor could also come into play on the trip.

Aides always try to leverage the president's intriguing personal story and political charisma abroad, to court locals over the heads of their leaders.

Obama, on his first overseas mission since winning the Nobel Peace Prize, will stress engagement and hopes for cooperation on national security, climate change and economic issues.

But tangible results may have to wait.

Many Asian nations want Obama to reignite global trade talks, and South Korea wants action on a bilateral trade pact.

But as he pushes historic reform drives like health care, Obama lacks the political sway to dictate trade policy to Congress and with unemployment topping 10 percent, the threat from Asian economies looms large.

Significant breakthroughs are not expected on global warming in Obama's talks with Hu. China and the United States are considered vital to fading hopes of a deal at U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen next month.

Shadowing Obama throughout the trip will be his looming decision on whether to deploy thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan -- he held his latest war council on the issue in the White House on Wednesday.

Obama wants to cement ties with new Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama and draw similarities between their respective crusades for political change.

They will also discuss a row over the relocation of a U.S. military base on Okinawa and Obama will make a major address in Tokyo on Saturday.

He will then debut at the Asia Pacific Cooperation forum summit in Singapore, and attend the first-ever joint meeting of a U.S. president and leaders of all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

After years of attempts to isolate Myanmar over its suppression of democracy, Washington is now engaging the junta but a private Obama meeting with Prime Minister Thein Sein is unlikely.

It is a measure of China's rising influence that Obama's talks in Beijing will range over global questions including North Korea, Iran's nuclear program and Afghanistan.

Obama will hold a town hall meeting in Shanghai Monday, before flying to Beijing ahead of formal talks and a state dinner on Tuesday.

He will also raise human rights, after declining to meet Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama before he had visited Beijing.

Finally, Obama will reach South Korea on Nov. 18 for talks with President Lee Myung-Bak on North Korea, climate change and trade.

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