Japan's Shinzo Abe heads to Washington

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is in the U.S. for an eight-day official visit.

His trip began in Boston, where he met with Secretary of State John Kerry and visited Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Later this week, he’ll also visit the Silicon Valley where he’ll meet with some of the country’s top technology business leaders.

Abe is also expected to address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday – the first time a Japanese prime minister has done so. His speech is expected to portray Japan as a strong United States ally. He may also promise a more robust role for the Japanese military – a top priority for the U.S. Japan’s military is currently prohibited from taking any offensive action, leaving that responsibility for the U.S. should Japan need to take action in disputed areas like the East and South China Sea.

The visit follows tension between leaders of some of Asia’s most powerful countries.

Last week, Abe drew criticism from China and South Korea after sending a ritual offering to a Tokyo shrine honoring Japan's war dead – including military leaders convicted of war crimes.

Japan also has yet to say if it will join China's new Asian infrastructure investment bank. China is using its massive foreign exchange reserves to build an alternative to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. More than 50 nations have joined despite pressure from the U.S. to decline. The subject of the new bank is expected to be addressed when Prime Minister Abe meets with President Barack Obama during his visit to Washington, D.C.

On Al Jazeera’s regular Sunday segment “The Week Ahead,” Del Walters talked with Tobias Harris, a political analyst at the advisory firm Teneo Intelligence in Washington.

We were also joined by Hiroki Takeuchi, an Associate Professor and Director of the Sun & Star Program at Southern Methodist University in Dallas,

Both Mr. Harris and Professor Takeuchi agree that with China’s rising international power, it’s imperative for the United States to maintain a strong relationship with Japan.

“Japan is the richest, most capable ally the U.S. has,” says Mr. Harris. “It’s a strong relationship; it goes back a long way. The two countries’ armed forces have worked together for a long time. So when you look at a changing threat environment and when you try to figure out what kind of country China is going to be in the future, any role for the U.S. in the region absolutely needs a close relationship between the U.S. and Japan going forward.

Professor Takeuchi notes that the rise of China is a long-term issue, and one that the U.S. needs to pay close attention to – perhaps even more than conflicts elsewhere in the world.

“This is the fundamental trend of international politics,” he says, “so how to manage China is the most important issue for the United States’ foreign policy. To manage China, Japan is very important.”

Prime Minister Abe’s visit to the U.S. also coincides with a controversy surrounding the island of Okinawa, where the U.S. is building a new military base. The island is already home to about 26,000 U.S. troops, and Okinawa’s local government and residents have demanded that the work stop – only to be overruled by the federal government. Tobias Harris pointed out that this deadlock is emblematic of a central issue for Japan – whether citizens want to forge ahead with a strengthened military relationship with the United States, and how much convincing it will take on the part of Mr. Abe and other Japanese leaders.

“There’s a lot of work to do on the part of the Abe government to convince the Japanese people that these security changes are necessary,” he says. “Abe is going to come to Washington and he’s going to be greeted warmly for making these changes but at the end of the day, for these changes to be effective in the long-term, they have to be seen as legitimate at home.”

Mr. Harris and Mr. Takeuchi also addressed the Trans-Pacific Partnership – another major component to strong U.S.-Japanese relations. The TPP is a trade deal between the United States, Japan and ten other Pacific nations – but China is not one of them.

The Obama administration is treating the deal as a vital tool in the fight against China’s rising power.

“When it comes to the story of the U.S. being involved in Asia, we’re at the point where if the U.S. can’t finish the TPP there are some major questions about what role there will be for the U.S. in Asia in the future and in “writing the rules”…To some extent, the U.S. has to get this done for that reason alone.