New prime ministers like to put their stamp on their governments, and the choice as their first overseas visit is often a sign of what they want to achieve with their foreign policy.
When Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe made a trip to China, the warm reception he received marked a high point in his troubled year in office.
His replacement, Yasuo Fukuda, perhaps sensing where the real trouble currently lies in Japan's diplomatic relationships, has headed for the United States.
It is not that Japan and the US - close defence and diplomatic allies - are in the midst of some grand dispute, but there are issues that run to the core of the relationship that are making things difficult.
The first is Japan's forced withdrawal from US-led anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan. Forced, because the Government in Tokyo does not have the parliamentary numbers to guarantee an extension.
But the other potentially more complicated issue to resolve is the gradually warming ties between the US and Japan's perpetually difficult neighbour, North Korea.
The US has been improving its relationship with Pyongyang alongside major progress in the so-called six-party nuclear deal.
One of the terms of the six-party deal is that North Korea will eventually be taken off the US list of countries that sponsor terrorism and there have been recent signs that that will happen soon.
That worries Japan, because it has argued that North Korea's program of abducting Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s constituted terrorism. That has left Japan and the US some distance apart when it comes to the six-party process.
Japan has refused to give any aid to North Korea under the terms of the deal because of the abductions issue. But earlier this week, Japan received its most blunt public warning that the US does not see the abductions and terrorism list issue as linked.
"How one gets on the state sponsors list is in accordance with US law, and that is how North Korea can and would be removed from the list," US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.
"In terms of the abductee issue, the two are not necessarily specifically linked. On the other hand... we are very sensitive to this issue for the Japanese Government."
Ahead of Mr Fukuda's visit, Japanese lobby groups have been trying to put pressure on congressmen and administration officials in Washington.
Relatives of abductees are on a visit and a group of government backbenchers who support them are there as well.
Mr Fukuda has signalled a less harsh line on North Korea than his predecessor, but he is going to want to return from his trip to the US with a sign that Japan's concerns are being listened to. © 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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