By Patricia Zengerle and Caren Bohan
TOKYO (Reuters) - President Barack Obama pledged to pursue greater U.S. engagement in Asia, pragmatic cooperation with China and a push for deeper trade ties with the region in a major speech in the Japanese capital on Saturday.
Tokyo is the first stop in Obama's nine-day Asian tour, which also takes him to Singapore for an Asia-Pacific economic summit, to China for talks likely to feature climate change and trade imbalances, and to South Korea, where North Korea's nuclear ambitions will be in focus.
Obama, on his first trip to Asia since becoming leader, reaffirmed Washington's alliance with Japan, strained of late by a row over a U.S. military base and questions about the future of the relationship as both countries adapt to a rising China.
"But while our commitment to this region begins in Japan, it does not end here," Obama, who met new Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama for a summit on Friday, said in his prepared speech.
"So I want every American to know that we have a stake in the future of this region, because what happens here has a direct affect on our lives at home," Obama told an audience of about 1,500 people at Tokyo's Suntory Hall.
"This is where we engage in much of our commerce and buy many of our goods. And this is where we can export more of our own products and create jobs back home in the process."
Obama, who will be spending three of his nine days in Asia in China, said Washington would approach the rising regional power "with a focus on our interests."
"And it is precisely for this reason that it is important to pursue pragmatic cooperation with China on issues of mutual concern -- because no one nation can meet the challenges of the 21st century alone, and the United States and China will both be better off when we are able to meet them together."
APPEAL TO NORTH KOREA
Obama also urged an unpredictable North Korea to return to stalled multilateral talks on its nuclear programme.
"We will not be cowed by threats, and we will continue to send a clear message through our actions, and not just our words: North Korea's refusal to meet its international obligations will lead only to less security, not more," he said.
Fresh government figures on the U.S. trade deficit could add urgency to Obama's efforts to seek greater export opportunities in China and other Asian countries.
America's trade gap ballooned in September by 18.2 percent to $36.5 billion, according to U.S. Commerce Department figures released in Washington on Friday.
It was the largest monthly increase in more than 10 years and was driven both by higher oil prices and a surge in imports from China.
The import growth may reinforce U.S. concerns that China's currency is undervalued against the dollar, which U.S. manufacturers say gives Chinese companies an unfair trade advantage.
Obama also reiterated his call for balanced global and regional growth.
"First, we must strengthen our economic recovery, and pursue growth that is both balanced and sustained," he said.
"Now that we are on the brink of economic recovery, we must also ensure that it can be sustained. We simply cannot return to the same cycles of boom and bust that led us into a global recession. We cannot follow the same policies that led to such imbalanced growth."
(Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Rodney Joyce and Ron Popeski)
