Clinton tour: Hillary Clinton kicks of Asia tour with visit to Tokyo shrine

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began the first full day of an Asian tour today by visiting a Shinto shrine in central Tokyo. Clinton arrived in Tokyo yesterday, on her first visit abroad since taking office last month.

The global economic downturn, North Korea's nuclear weapons programme as well as bilateral relations are expected to feature prominently in talks today with Japan's top leaders.

Clinton and her Japanese counterpart, Hirofumi Nakasone, are also to sign an agreement to transfer 8,000 US soldiers from the southern Japanese island of Okinawa to Guam, a US territory in the Pacific Ocean.

Japan has been the United States' closest Asian ally for more than five decades.

Clinton, the first top US diplomat in half a century to use Asia for her inaugural foreign trip, said she wanted to show her "respect toward history and the culture of Japan" as she arrived at the Meiji Jingu shrine. She said she had chosen Asia for her first trip "to convey that America's relationships across the Pacific are indispensable" to addressing the challenges in the 21st century.

Clinton will travell to Indonesia tomorrow.u00a0