US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Japan yesterday to remain active on the world stage and pledged support for Washington’s key ally in East Asia as the operator of a stricken nuclear plant finally set out a timeline to shut it down.“Economically, diplomatically and in so many other ways, Japan is indispensable to global problem-solving,” Clinton told a news conference after talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto. “And the US-Japan alliance is as indispensable as ever to global security and progress.”Clinton also said Japan and the US had agreed to create a “public-private partnership for reconstruction” under the guidance of Japan’s government, and that US firms and organisations would begin discussing how they can support Japan as it comes through the crisis.Clinton arrived in Japan, which is still reeling from the triple disaster nearly five weeks later, on the final leg of a global trek that took her to Berlin for Nato talks on the Libya conflict and to Seoul to tackle the North Korean nuclear stand-off and boost trade talks with another key ally in Asia.The natural disaster and the nuclear crisis that followed have seriously rattled the world’s third-largest economy.Damages from the quake and tsunami have been estimated at $300bn, making it the world’s costliest natural disaster.Washington has deployed thousands of troops plus military aircraft and navy ships to help with relief work in the devastated northeastern part of the island nation.Clinton, during her 5-1/2 hour stop, said there was no reason for Americans to stay away from Japan, other than the area around the nuclear plant.“We have encouraged businesses and other Americans to go on with their normal lives and to travel to Japan for business and other reasons,” she said.Clinton is the highest-ranking US official to visit in a gesture of solidarity with Japan since it was engulfed in its worst crisis since World War Two.Prime Minister Naoto Kan has insisted the nuclear situation is slowly stabilising and the country must now focus on recovery from the 9.0-magnitude quake and the tsunami it unleashed.“I believe ... this difficult period will provide us with a precious window of opportunity to secure the ‘Rebirth of Japan’,” Kan wrote in an editorial in the online version of Sunday’s International Herald Tribune newspaper.He said Japan would remain internationally engaged while it recovers from the disasters.In the meantime, Washington is concerned about harm to the economic health of a key trading partner and a pillar of the global economy.Japan’s economics minister warned last week that the damage was likely to be worse than first thought as power shortages would cut factory output and disrupt supply chains. The Bank of Japan governor said the economy was in a “severe state”, while central bankers were uncertain when efforts to rebuild the northeast would boost growth.Japan’s nuclear disaster has also raised concern in the US about President Barack Obama’s push for expanded nuclear energy to help wean Americans off their dependence on foreign oil. Reuters