US President Barack Obama waves from Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base. Obama arrives in Tokyo today for a summit where the two allies will seek to put strained security ties on firmer footing.—Reuters pic.

TOKYO, Nov 13 — US President Barack Obama arrives in Tokyo today for a summit where the two allies will seek to put strained security ties on firmer footing as they adjust to a rising China set to overtake Japan as the world’s No. 2 economy.

Tokyo is the first stop in a nine-day Asian tour that will take Obama to Singapore for an Asia-Pacific summit, to China for talks on climate change and huge trade imbalances and to South Korea where Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions will be in focus.

Washington’s relations with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s new government, which has pledged to steer a diplomatic course less dependent on its long-time ally and forge closer ties with Asia, have been frayed by a feud over a US military base.

Obama and Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party ousted its long-dominant rival in a historic August election, were expected to turn down the heat in the dispute over the US Marines’ Futenma air base on Japan’s southern Okinawa island, a key part of a realignment of the 47,000 US troops in Japan.

“I want to make this a summit that shows the importance of Japan-US relations in a global context,” Hatoyama told reporters on Friday morning ahead of Obama’s arrival.

But assuaging anxiety and beginning to define a new direction for the five-decade-old alliance will be a difficult task.

No breakthroughs were likely in the feud over Futenma during Obama’s visit, although Hatoyama said yesterday he would tell the US leader that he wants to resolve the issue soon.

US officials have made crystal clear they want Tokyo to implement a 2006 deal under which Futenma, located in a crowded part of Okinawa, would be closed and replaced with a facility in a remoter part of the island. Replacing Futenma is a prerequisite to shifting up to 8,000 Marines to the US territory of Guam.

But Hatoyama said before the election that the base should be moved off Okinawa, fanning hopes of the island’s residents, reluctant hosts to more than half the US forces in Japan.

Entangled with the feud are deeper questions about whether Obama and Hatoyama can start to reframe the alliance in the face of changing regional and global dynamics.

China is forecast to overtake Japan as the world’s second-biggest economy as early as next year, raising concerns in Japan that Washington will cosy up to Beijing in a “Group of Two” (G2) and leave Tokyo out in the cold.

While Obama begins his Asian trip in Tokyo, he will spend just 24 hours in the Japanese capital compared to three days in China, where he will discuss revaluing the yuan, encouraging Chinese consumers to spend and opening Chinese markets further.

Some in Washington are equally worried by signs Japan is distancing itself from its closest ally by promoting an as yet ill-defined East Asian Community, despite Hatoyama’s assurances the US-Japan alliance is at the core of Tokyo’s diplomacy.

Hatoyama has said he wants to begin a review of the alliance with an aim to broadening ties longer term, and the leaders could agree at the summit to begin that process.

The two leaders will also call for an 80 per cent cut in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and issue a statement pledging to cooperate to promote nuclear disarmament, Japanese media said. — Reuters