U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent trip to Asia underscored elements of continuity and change in the Obama administration's Asia policy. Generally speaking, her visits to Japan, South Korea and China represented continuity; her trip to Indonesia signaled change.

Her first stop was Tokyo, where she underscored the continuing role of the U.S.-Japan alliance relationship as the "foundation" of U.S. Asia policy and the "cornerstone of security in East Asia." She endorsed the "military transformation" plans of her predecessor by formally signing an agreement with her Japanese counterpart to relocate some 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam by 2014, while stressing that America's defense commitment to Japan remained as strong and unwavering as ever.

Clinton also met with the families of Japanese citizens known or suspected to have been kidnapped by North Korea, mostly during the 1980s, promising, as the Bush administration had before her, that their loved ones would not be forgotten, while being equally careful not to tie North Korea denuclearization too closely to progress on the abductee issue.