It’s a long trip — 6,800 miles (11,000 km) — for a short meeting, but Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso is scheduled to meet President Barack Obama Tuesday morning in an hour-long summit at the White House.
The visit, announced last week, gives Aso the distinction of being the first head of state to be hosted by the Obama administration and comes hours ahead of the president’s first address to a joint session of Congress. “It clearly shows President Obama gives the Japan-U.S. relationship high priority,” Takeo Kawamura, Japan’s Cabinet secretary, said. The White House says the leaders will “discuss the close and long-standing alliance between the United States and Japan” and will emphasize “the importance of consultation between leaders of the world’s largest economies in the run-up to the London Economic Summit” in April. Another topic likely to be on the agenda is Japan’s Asian neighbor North Korea, which U.S. intelligence says is preparing to test a long-range missile. Pyongyang has denied the charge, instead saying it is making preparations to launch a satellite. A test-fire by North Korea in 2006 failed 40 seconds after launch. The missile is thought to have an intended range of about 4,200 miles (6,700 kilometers), which — if true — could give it the capability of striking Alaska or Hawaii. Aso’s visit to Washington comes, as his approval rating stands at a meager 11 percent, the second lowest ever recorded for a Japanese prime minister. Yoshiro Mori, a former prime minister, resigned after his rate bottomed out at 9 percent.
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