PREVIEW: Obama's first Asia trip: Tough talks on climate, North Korea

Nov 11, 2009, 11:05 GMT

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 urged patience, but legislation that would clamp down on domestic polluters is facing an uphill battle in the Senate and is unlikely to be passed before the Copenhagen talks.

The White House acknowledges China has begun major steps in recent years to shift its economy toward greener energy. But US officials want hard emissions targets. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel- winning US physicist, will be travelling this week to India before joining Obama in China.

'The notion that one country stands in the way of addressing climate change would be to forget countries like China, India, Brazil and others that have to also be brought along in this process,' White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said this week.

Politicians in Washington are fearful of the economic effects of a clampdown on emissions. The world may be pulling out of recession, but US unemployment has climbed above 10 per cent and is still rising in many advanced economies.

Drawing lessons from the economic crisis of the last year, the US and Asia are hard at work 'rebalancing' their relationship.

That means many Asian countries must reduce their reliance on exports and boost domestic consumption. US households are busy trimming their mountains of debt and can no longer be relied on to drive global growth.

The rebalancing of spending and trade flows will highlight this weekend's summit of leaders from the South-East Asian Nations bloc in Singapore, Obama's second stop. It will also dominate talks with China, the world's third-largest economy, which saw exports plunge but weathered the global recession better than most.

China holds some 800 billion dollars in US government debt and is worried about Washington's skyrocketing budget deficit. Obama's trip comes amid a flare-up in trade disputes between the two major powers over tyre imports, raw materials and car parts.

Trade will be a key topic on Obama's last stop in South Korea. Obama has been skeptical of free-trade agreements and reluctant to push for ratification of a stalled deal with the South Koreans.