CANBERRA—Whales will dog Kevin Rudd next week.
So will his perceived sympathies with China, his surprisingly clunky approach to international relations for a former diplomat, and a lack of "nemawashi" - Japanese for groundwork.
The prime minister begins his first visit to Japan on Sunday, a five-day trip that is significantly one day longer than his earlier tour of China.
The aim is to repair the damage done to the Australia-Japan relationship caused by Australia's attack on Japanese whaling and Rudd's decision to visit Beijing before Tokyo.
He wants to focus on his call for a new Asia-Pacific community, climate change and trade talks.
But the Japanese want to talk about whaling.
Japan's government was deeply offended when the new Rudd government decided to follow Japanese whalers around to check for evidence of illegal whaling.
It was indignant when Environment Minister Peter Garrett released highly emotive footage of a slain mother and calf being hauled onto a whaling boat.
Privately, Japanese officials complain that the footage contained no date or location, making it highly dubious as evidence.
Others believe the discomfort comes from the reaction of the Japanese public to the footage.
"The Japanese people responded negatively to that video, in that they responded sympathetically towards whaling," says Professor Aurelia George Mulgan, of the Australian National University's politics program.
"This was the Rudd government getting between the Japanese government and the Japanese people."
The measure of success or otherwise of the visit will be in the Tokyo newspaper headlines.
If they are all about whales, Rudd will have failed to improve the "muddled" relationship, which has suffered from the twin hits of new governments in both countries.
Neither country can expect much of a win on whales next week.
Any talks will be overshadowed by the looming International Whaling Commission meeting in Chile later this month.
The most Australia can hope for is for Japan to agree to continue its suspension of its humpback cull and to engage in the IWC process in good faith.
In return, Japan wants an indication from Rudd that Australia will maintain its push for reforming the IWC.
"I would think something to the effect that the Australian prime minister has indicated Australia is actively engaged in the reform of the IWC, without necessarily giving the details of what that might be," international law expert Don Rothwell says.
"Reform of the IWC in Japan is seen as so-called normalisation of the IWC, which is ultimately code for the return to commercial whaling.
"Prime Minister Rudd's not going to go in any way down that track but at least if the Australian prime minister can admit that Australia is engaged in the reform process I think that would play over quite well in Japan."
In what is becoming a trademark move, Rudd foreshadowed the aims of his overseas visit with a speech in which he outlined his plans for a new Asia-Pacific grouping similar to the European Union.
The new regional creation would span the entire Asia Pacific, including the United States, Japan, China, India and Indonesia.
In essence, it would be like APEC plus India and minus Russia.
Analysts suspect Rudd floated the idea ahead of this week's visit to Japan and Indonesia because they are the two countries least likely to reject it outright.
But his Japanese counterpart, Yasuo Fukuda, outlined his own vision for a new regional architecture last month - a creation which did not include Australia.
Mulgan says Rudd should have discussed his idea with Asian leaders before announcing it publicly.
"It's not the Japanese way," she says.
"There's no nemawashi."
Nemawashi is a Japanese term meaning prior consultation. Literally meaning to go around the roots, it was originally used by farmers when they had to transplant a tree.
It now means a common business practice of ensuring that everyone agrees on a proposal before it is made publicly.
But Andrew MacIntyre of the ANU's Crawford School of Economics and Government says both prime ministers are equally guilty of grandstanding.
"Did Fukuda ring Rudd and tell him his plan?" MacIntyre says.
MacIntyre says there's no doubt the Australia-Japan relationship is in a "muddle".
But he says that's more to do with both prime ministers being new than with any serious problems.
Next week's trip will be the test.
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