By Mure Dickie, FT Japan bureau chief

Here’s an interesting question ahead of Barack Obama’s arrival in Tokyo on Friday for the first leg of his Asia tour: would Mao Zedong have approved of the US president’s itinerary? Or would he have worried that Obama was not doing enough to make sure that Japan felt loved?

It might be surprising to some, but the late Chinese chairman was an astute observer of the impact that trip scheduling could have on sensitive Japanese sentiment. So much so that he discussed the matter in forceful terms with Henry Kissinger way back in 1971. Read more

By Geoff Dyer, FT China bureau chief

Barack Obama is preparing to get on Air Force One en route to Japan to start his first presidential visit to Asia. Yet one of the centerpieces of his three days in China, a town-hall style meeting in Shanghai, is also still up in the air. Read more