Hillary Clinton is paranoid about North Korea, jealous of China, and wants to "reassure" Japan that they are "important".
By visiting Asia first, Clinton has broken with a long tradition among new secretaries of state of visiting Europe or the Middle East first, a move seen as an acknowledgement of China's growing status as an economic and military power. Part of her visit to Japan is intended to reassure her hosts that Japan will not be bypassed diplomatically as the Obama attempts to win Chinese co-operation on trade, the environment and regional security.
Clinton, who said last year that "our relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world this century," faces a potentially difficult meeting with Chinese leaders in Beijing.
The US hopes to persuade China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, to support new attempts to cut carbon emissions, and to take a lead in restructuring the global financial system. The US is China's biggest export market and China is the largest holder of US treasury bonds.
She said human rights would be "part of our agenda" in talks with the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, and the premier, Wen Jiabao, scheduled for the end of the week after stays in Indonesia and South Korea.
The Guardianhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/16/clinton-japan-visit
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