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Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso will meet Tuesday with President Barrack Obama. He will be the first foreign leader to visit the White House since the new administration took office last month.
Japan has been getting a lot of attention from the newly inaugurated Obama administration. Just last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made Tokyo her first stop on a week-long tour of Asia. And now Prime Minister Taro Aso is headed to Washington to meet with the American president.
Most analysts believe the Obama-Aso summit is largely symbolic . There is a sense in Tokyo the White House will overlook Japan, in favor of improving relations with China.
Masaru Nishikawa, research fellow at the Japan Institute for International Affairs, explains the public's skepticism .
"Obama's administration is a little bit ignorant or probably they tend to ignore the Japanese and Japanese government. Obama is trying to restore some kind of interest and confidence of Japanese people. I think that is his aim, Nishikawa said."
There is a lot for the two leaders to discuss during their summit. Washington wants Japan to dispatch solders to the war in Afghanistan . There are also the stalled six-party talks on ending North Korea's nuclear-weapons program.
And both the United States and Japan have been badly hit by the global economic crisis. Tokyo announced