The trademark Obama optimism and vision will certainly be on display during the President's  first Asian tour but the US leader will also be under pressure during the trip as there are plenty of headache issues. 

The declining value of the US dollar and US trade deficit, which China is funding, means Obama arrives not just as leader of the Free World but also as major debtor in the region.

“I think the issue of the declining value of the dollar will be a big issue on the table, and the deeper issues – the structural imbalances in trade, the growing budget deficits in the United States, Europe and Japan – are still major issues that the Chinese are understandably concerned about,” regional expert Andrew Oros, from Washington College, told RNW.

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Barack Obama is in Tokyo, kicking off his first visit to Asia as US President. The four nations on his agenda each present him with different challenges, but the overarching theme will be economic stability.

He will will meet in Tokyo with the new Japanese government of Yukio Hatoyama. His other stops include Singapore, China and South Korea. President Obama is visiting a continent that remains economically unstable as a result of the financial crisis, for which many Asian nations blame the United States.

New status quo
The US President faces a different problem in Tokyo: Prime Minster Hatayoma and his Democratic Party of Japan ended 50 years of conservative rule, sweeping to power with a campaign that included anti-American rhetoric, especially regarding the US military base on Okinawa.

President Obama will need to forge a new status quo in Japanese-American relations, says Andrew Oros, an Asia expert at Washington College.

“This historic transition of power has created a new opportunity for the Japanese government to think about issues in a different way, and I think overall the United States was quite happy with the status quo in our relations with Japan, this very deep relationship between the Bush administration and Japan.”

Equal partnership
Mr Hatoyama is under pressure to live up to campaign promises to force what he calls an equal partnership with the US, but Mr Oros believes the two sides will postpone negotiations until after this first meeting.

“In the short term I think that the goal of both sides is to have a good first meeting, to reiterate that the US-Japan alliance is on very firm footing. The foundation is really quite strong, and that hasn’t changed at all with the Democrats being elected in Japan.”

Understandably concerned
On Sunday, President Obama will fly to Singapore for a conference of the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) nations. American commentators are watching to see whether President Obama will shake hands with the representatives of Myanmar’s military junta, who also will attend.

The next stops will be Shanghai and Beijing. Mr Obama’s goal in China will be to continue working with the Chinese to nurse the global economy back to health.

Broader issues
But Mr Obama won’t be in China merely to mollify America’s biggest creditor. The President’s visit to Asia will not be short on symbolic value and visionary thinking:

“I think he’ll also begin to think about the Asian region and the broader issues like climate change, energy security, and potentially, a stronger trilateral relationship between the US, Japan and China is part of the purpose of this multiple-city visit.”

The last stop on Mr Obama’s Asian tour takes him to South Korea, where concerns over access to beef, auto and other markets are holding up a new free trade agreement.