When US President Barack Obama travels to Australia, China and Myanmar for crucial rounds of meetings with world leaders the coming week he won’t be a “lame duck”, but the confident leader of the world’s largest economy.

That’s the message the White House is offering before Obama jets out of Washington DC on Sunday (Monday AEDT).

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Obama’s first stop is Beijing for APEC and one of his first bilateral meetings will be with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Obama will also sit down with Indonesian President Joko Widodo in Beijing.

US President Barack Obama … on his way to Australia. Photo: AAP

After Obama’s Democratic Party was savaged in Tuesday’s mid-term elections, the rival Republican Party now controls both houses of congress.

With just two years left of his presidency and his power to get legislation through Congress greatly diminished, some pundits have labelled Obama a lame duck president.

“When we arrive in Beijing, we will arrive in a position of confidence as the largest economy in the world that’s been growing rapidly, is regaining its position as a driver of global growth and as a country that is more active and more involved in the Asia-Pacific than ever before,” Evan Medeiros, special assistant to the president and national security council director for Asian Affairs, in rejecting the label, told reporters during a briefing in Washington DC on Friday.

Medeiros said Obama would meet Abbott in Beijing because the Australian leader’s schedule at the G20 in Brisbane will be tight.

“On the first day, the president will hold bilateral meetings with Prime Minister Abbott of Australia, because we don’t have time in Australia for a bilateral meeting given that Australia is the host of the G20,” Medeiros said.

Obama will spend three days in Beijing, with the first two days focused on APEC and the third for a state visit.

The president will also participate in a Trans-Pacific Partnership leaders meeting.

Tony Abbott is talking tough ahead of his trip to China. Photo: AAP

Obama will travel to Myanmar on Wednesday for the East Asia Summit and the US-ASEAN Summit, where he will highlight his concerns about tensions in the region regarding the South China Sea.

The US leader will then fly to Brisbane for the G20, with the White House underlining the importance of a trilateral meeting there between the president, Abbott and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

A meeting between the three countries at the leader level has not been undertaken since 2007.

It will “raise up and highlight the important and growing degree of co-operation on diplomatic and security challenges in the region among three of our closest allies”, Medeiros said.

Obama will also deliver “a very significant policy address” in Brisbane discussing US leadership in the Asia-Pacific.

It will include economic, security and climate change issues.

“Specifically, the speech will outline our policy priorities for the remainder of the term. It will be very forward-looking,” Medeiros said.

“It will be his vision for what he wants to accomplish in the Asia-Pacific and the ways in which he will do it, covering diplomatic issues, economic issues, security issues, people-to-people issues, the way he will capture how comprehensive his vision is for the Asia Pacific rebalancing strategy.”