Beef row looms on Rice Japan trip

By Jonathan Head
BBC News, Tokyo

Condoleezza Rice will get a warm welcome in Tokyo

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Tokyo, with North Korea, the Japanese ban on US beef, and relations with China high on the agenda.

The ban on US beef imports, imposed after signs of mad cow disease were found, will be a matter of contention.

Ms Rice has already stopped in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, and will head on to South Korea and China.

Japan has been the US' strongest ally in Asia for 50 years. In recent years the alliance has grown even stronger.

For every US official on tour in Asia, Japan is seen as a rest stop - a place to draw breath before tackling the diplomatic challenges posed by neighbouring states.

China concern

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has kept Japanese troops in Iraq, defying public opposition, and last month Japan for the first time joined the US in expressing concern about tension over Taiwan - a statement which angered the government in Beijing.

Japan's loyalty may be heartening for the Bush administration, but its increasingly frosty relationship with China is causing alarm here in East Asia.

Both are competing fiercely for access to energy supplies, and over diplomatic influence in the rest of Asia.

Issues like their dispute over a group of islands in the South China Sea, and the Chinese impression that Japan is not wholly repentant over its past abuses, have sparked passionate demonstrations in both countries.

Many Japanese fear China's rising power and feel they should no longer be constrained by what happened in World War II.

All of which is shifting the strategic landscape that Condoleezza Rice confronts in Tokyo.