"It should be clear where that path leads," Obama said. "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."

Calling for greater U.S. engagement in Asia, Obama said Americans should not fear a robust China, but he cautioned that all nations must respect human rights, including religious freedoms.

"We welcome China's efforts to play a greater role on the world stage, a role in which their growing economy is joined by growing responsibility," Obama said.

Obama offered an incentive for North Korea to abandon the nuclear weapons it is believed to already have and the production program it continues in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. He outlined a possible future of economic opportunity and greater global security and respect. "This respect cannot be earned through belligerence," he said.

More broadly, the president's speech before 1,500 prominent Japanese in a soaring downtown Tokyo concert hall was intended to showcase a United States that, under Obama's leadership, seeks deeper and more equal engagement in Asia. It was the fifth major foreign address of Obama's 10-month presidency, this one geared toward setting a new tone for the sometimes-rocky U.S. relationship with the region.

Acknowledging Asia's growing power and perception of America's parallel decline in the region, Obama aides and the president himself had said the chief aim for his eight-day trip through Asia wasn't so much to bring home specific "deliverables" but to convincingly press the point that the United States very much is in the Asian game.

Obama called himself "America's first Pacific president."

In his scene-setting speech of those travels, Obama promised that Washington would work hard to strengthen already established alliances in Asia, such as with Japan and South Korea, build on newer ones with nations such as China and Indonesia, and increase its participation with a burgeoning alphabet soup of Asian multilateral organizations.

The involvement, the president said, is not just academic - but crucial to the issues "that matter most to our people," such as jobs, a cleaner environment, and preventing dangerous weapons proliferation.

White House Counsel Quits

White House counsel

Greg Craig abruptly announced his resignation yesterday, just weeks after telling reporters that he had no plans to leave.

Craig gave no hint of the reason for his resignation in a statement that the White House released, and he couldn't be reached for comment.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told people weeks ago, however, that Craig would be gone by the end of the year, and questions persisted about whether Craig would be the scapegoat for problems and delays in the planned shutdown of the detainee prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Besides working on the Guantanamo shutdown, Craig was a key player in the Obama administration's changes in ethics rules and detention and torture policies, as well as the successful nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

Known for his role as one of former President Bill Clinton's lawyers during his 1998 impeachment, Craig was one of the first Clinton loyalists to support candidate Barack Obama.

President Obama said his new White House counsel would be Bob Bauer, who was his campaign lawyer.

- McClatchy Newspapers