At least, Clinton has left hopes for Japan by making a promise not to forget the abductees, pledging to help Japan resolve the issue and calling it a priority for the United States.

In the meantime, analysts here said that Japan's domestic obsessions with the understandable trauma of abductees should never have been allowed to trump Japan's higher ordered interests when it came to nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and nuclear non-proliferation.

They also warned Japan, if entangled with just domestic politics and abduction issues, might lose its international influence that matches its strength as a nation and could diminish its presence in the world.

China consensus

Before Clinton's visit, there had been wide-spread concern that the Obama administration would favor China to Japan in its Asian-Pacific policies.

In fact, with the reduced tensions over Taiwan Straits, the military importance of the Japan-US alliance may have declined slightly in recent times in regard to China.

Being chosen as the first destination of Clinton's inaugural trip, as well as the fact that Aso Taro was invited by Obama to visit White House as the first foreign head of state, Japan now can be assured it will not be traded for China. Instead, Japanese Foreign Minister Nakasone said the two sides have reached consensus that "China will play an important role in international community."

The cooperation engaging China included six-party talks, currently hosted by Beijing, climate change and many others.

But this time in particular, Clinton, accompanied by Todd Stern, the US special envoy on climate change, hopes to work with China on environment preservation and climate change.

"Japan is, as you know a leader in clean energy and there is an opportunity for Japan working with China to help make buildings more energy-efficient, to help create more energy-efficient vehicles," she said, adding "and there's an opportunity for the United States to enter into partnerships with China."

Clinton said she will discuss the envisaged trilateral partnership on sustainable development in China with Chinese officials when she visits the country later this week.

According to Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, "none of us should want a strong Japan-US alliance based on, or at the price of, bad relationships with China."

Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, Washington, also expressed similar viewpoints in his recent essay published in the Daily Yomiuri.

"Japan is needed and vital. The United States needs an Asia strategy that has room both for China and Japan to serve as responsible regional stakeholders of interests and power, working more collaboratively than in zero-sum conflict," he wrote.

(Xinhua News Agency February 18, 2009)