President Barack Obama with Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama at a joint press following a bilateral meeting at the Kantei, the prime minister’s office, in Tokyo, yesterday. Obama kicked off his first tour of Asia with a visit to Japan.

TOKYO: Demonstrators staged rallies on the streets of Tokyo during President Barack Obama’s visit yesterday to protest against US bases, push for a nuclear-free world and urge action on climate change.

The small demonstrations were peaceful, held under the close watch of Tokyo police who had deployed more than 16,000 officers in the capital to guard key sites against any kind of security threat.

About 100 opponents of US military bases in Japan marched through Tokyo, after a larger protest last Sunday drew more than 20,000 people on the southern island of Okinawa, home to most of the bases. “Break up the Japan-US summit,” one demonstrator shouted, while a banner condemned America’s “selfish military strategy” on Okinawa, where more than half of the 47,000 US troops in Japan are stationed.

Elsewhere, right-wing nationalists welcomed Obama, making clear that they oppose the stance of Japan’s new centre-left government to seek less subservient ties with the long-time ally the United States.

Two campaign vans outside the US embassy hoisted both Japanese and US flags and called for “a stronger alliance between Tokyo and Washington.” A woman activist, shouting through an amplifier, urged Washington to “let Japan possess nuclear weapons againsts threats by China and North Korea.”

Anti-nuclear activists held a separate rally after survivors of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki took a letter to the US embassy demanding that Obama work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.

“Please remember that we, as Hibakusha (atom bomb survivors) and all those who love peace will always be on your side, President Obama,” said one of the authors, Kazumi Tsuchida, 69, who lost her father in Hiroshima. The US president and his host Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama have pushed for the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world, and Obama said this week he would like to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki some time during his presidency.

Environmental activists called on both leaders to step up efforts against climate change ahead of a UN summit in Copenhagen next month. Greenpeace activists wearing Obama and Hatoyama face masks shook hands before a banner that read: “Obama, our survival is your decision. Stop climate chaos.”