Bush Arrives in Japan to Start Asia Trip
china...@yahoo.com
Air Force One on Tuesday, with no public appearances scheduled until
Wednesday morning local time Tuesday evening in Washington. He was to
tour the Golden Temple, meet with youth leaders and sit down with
Koizumi before delivering remarks on the power of democracy.
The mood will be celebratory when Bush takes center stage in this
ancient capital with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, his
closest ally in Asia.
The two leaders meet Wednesday amid apparent progress toward ending the
two-year-old Japanese ban on U.S. beef imports that has been an
irritant on the American side. And the two countries just announced an
agreement to realign and reduce U.S. military forces in Japan,
resolving an issue that had caused concern in Tokyo.
Bush and Koizumi were expected to keep under wraps a host of trickier
matters, such as a growing trade deficit with Japan, Tokyo's reluctance
to reduce the kind of farm subsidies that are holding up progress on a
U.S.-backed global free-trade pact, and a recent Koizumi visit to a
controversial shrine that has roiled relations between Japan and
neighbors South Korea and China.
Aimed primarily at China, Bush's speech will hold up such nations as
Japan, Australia and South Korea as models because of their strong
democratic traditions and willingness to help establish democracy in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
>From Japan, Bush flies to South Korea to meet with President Roh
Moo-hyun and attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
Bush's overnight stay in Japan is the first leg of an eight-day Asia
trip that also takes the president to China and Mongolia.
Koizumi earned Bush's steadfast loyalty by staunchly backing the
invasion of Iraq and making the unpopular decision to send non-combat
troops there in January 2004. That mission is expected to expire next
month, but Bush indicated before the trip that he wouldn't press his
friend for a decision on whether to extend it.
It is a sign of how highly regarded Koizumi is in the Bush White House
that Japan is the only country the United States has specifically
supported for a permanent seat on an expanded U.N. Security Council
something Tokyo badly wants.