Japan's new PM tests skills on world stage

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President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama welcome Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and wife Miyuki Hatoyama as they arrive for the G20 summit dinner in Pittsburgh. --- AP

TOKYO, Sept 25 (AP): Before Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama took office, diplomacy was seen as his weakest point. Now, he can't seem to get enough of it.
Just six days after being sworn in as Japan's leader, Hatoyama left for the United States where this week he addressed the United Nations General Assembly, and met with President Barack Obama and other world leaders.
On Friday, he was in Pittsburgh for a Group of Twenty (G20) economic summit. Next month, he will travel to China for a trilateral summit with leaders of that country and South Korea, and he is mulling whether to go to Copenhagen next week to help with Tokyo's bid to host the 2016 Olympics.
Hatoyama's high-profile diplomatic debut - filled with promises that Japan will make major contributions on climate change and the global economy, and seek better relations with its neighbors - was intended to establish him as a credible statesman after more than a decade on the sidelines running the country's largest opposition party.
But his first foray onto the international stage got mixed marks Friday from the domestic media, which said he still needs to prove he can do more than talk.
Officials in Tokyo said they believed the trip was a success.
"His proactive approach has been welcomed by the international community," said chief Cabinet spokesman Hirofumi Hirano. "I think he made a deep impression on the other leaders. His diplomacy is off to a smooth start."
At the UN, he promised to cut Japan's greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent by 2020 - a plan which has been welcomed by environmentalists, and in a meeting with Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev he said he hopes a territorial dispute that has soured relations with Moscow since the closing days of World War II will be solved "within this generation."
Such rhetoric has been criticised as vague - he did not, for example, propose a plan to end the stalemate with Russia over the disputed islands, which are located north of Japan's Hokkaido Island and were occupied by Soviet troops just before Japan's 1945 surrender.
Hatoyama's meeting with Obama, meanwhile, was watched very closely because he has said he intends to steer a more independent course from Washington, particularly on national security.
In their half-hour meeting, the two skirted that issue and focused instead on simply getting to know each other before Obama comes to Tokyo in November.