With less than a week before U.S. President Barack Obama arrives in Tokyo, the visit is being touted as coming in the middle of what some pundits are calling a "once-in-a-generation" change in Japanese politics.

Critics of newly minted Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama have said his treatment of America has been cold and worry that his recent overtures to China are indicative of a more substantial disregard for the value of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

Without a doubt, Obama's first trip to Japan is enormously significant for the United States, Japan and the Asia-Pacific region.

However, the visit and its subsequent treatment by the new government — not Hatoyama's recent behavior — will be a much better indicator of how the prime minister sees Japan's future relations with its longtime ally.