 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd visits Japan and Indonesia this week in what will be his first major opportunity to set out his Asian agenda, after announcing plans for an Asia-Pacific Community by 2020. Rudd's trip will focus on bilateral security and trade issues but also seek to foster regional responses to climate change and natural disasters, such as the Myanmar cyclone. While China is now Australia's top trade partner, Japan and Indonesia are Australia's two most important strategic allies in the region. The Mandarin-speaking former diplomat said last week the region must develop a European Union-style community to tackle the challenges of the Asia-Pacific century, such as terrorism, climate change and energy and food security. Rudd is seen as pro-Asian and his Asia-Pacific Community plan will be given a polite hearing, say analysts, but add he should not expect any concrete commitments during this trip. "Everyone gets very proprietorial about this and no one is in a hurry for the white boys to come in and shoot their mouths off with a new plan," said Andrew MacIntyre, director of the Crawford School of Economics at the Australian National University. "But everyone recognizes there is a need for something like this. This idea has a chance. There is no doubt it will mutate." During talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, Rudd says he will seek to accelerate negotiations on a free-trade agreement (FTA) and strengthen security engagement, both bilaterally and trilaterally with the United States. "In many ways, our relationship with Japan is one of the foundations of our regional engagement. I am committed to adding even more depth and breadth to that partnership," Rudd said in a major Asia-Pacific speech last week. Japan is Australia's biggest export market and as well as meeting Japan's prime minister, Rudd will also have an audience with the Emperor and Empress of Japan. Australian and Japanese media say Rudd's visit to Beijing in April, before first visiting Japan, was seen as a snub and that he will need to repair ties on his June 8-12 trip. "There is no doubt the Japanese worry about that, but the Japanese really have a neurosis on this issue (of China), it's not such a big deal elsewhere in the region," said MacIntyre. "The big conclusion Asia came to when he (Rudd) won office was that Australia would be more engaged in Asia." Rudd will also have to negotiate the divisive issue of whaling, with Australia at the forefront of global moves to force Japan to end its annual whale hunt in the Southern Ocean. He said on Sunday, just before leaving for Japan, that he hoped to make progress on a diplomatic solution to the whaling dispute during his visit, but added: "Our position on the protection of whales has not changed one bit." REGIONAL COOPERATION Rudd's visit to Indonesia will be his second since coming to power last November, after attending a climate change conference in Bali where he committed Australia to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. Jakarta is Canberra's most strategically important Asian ally, but ties have often been rocky because of past human rights abuses by Indonesia's military in East Timor and Aceh province. Rudd says Australians, which have at times been suspicious of Indonesia, should have a better understanding of the world's most populous Muslim nation because bilateral ties were so important. "An important part of this mutual learning process is inter-faith dialogue," said Rudd. In Jakarta from June 12-14, Rudd will also seek to quicken the pace of free-trade talks and build on defense and security when he meets President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. But a major aim of his two-country trip will be to foster regional cooperation on natural disasters and climate change. "Natural disasters in Burma and China in recent weeks... death tolls, have reminded us of the need for regional cooperation to have practical results, by improving coordination of disaster response efforts for instance," said Rudd. Myanmar's ruling junta dithered for weeks over allowing foreign aid workers into the country, where 134,000 people were killed or missing and 2.4 million are in need of urgent aid. Rudd believes APEC has an important role to play in disaster response and that Australia and Indonesia, as co-chairs of APEC's emergency response taskforce, should accelerate their work. He will raise disaster coordination with the Indonesian president. On climate change, Rudd says he will urge Japan and Australia to work together on the science of climate change and in Indonesia he will discuss ways to reduce deforestation. Indonesia has large areas of tropical rainforest but has lost vast tracts to illegal logging and oil palm plantations. Corruption and lax enforcement of laws ensures large areas are cut down and burned every year, releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Indonesia had the fastest pace of deforestation in the world between 2000-2005, according to Greenpeace, with an area of forest equivalent to 300 soccer pitches destroyed every hour. 