The United States is ending its arms embargo on Vietnam, a historic step that draws a line under the two countries' earlier enmity and underscores their shared concerns about China's growing military clout.
The move came during President Barack Obama's first visit to Hanoi on Monday, which his hosts described as the arrival of a warm spring and a new chapter in relations between two countries that were at war four decades ago.
Obama, the third US president to visit Vietnam since diplomatic relations were restored in 1995, has made a strategic "rebalance" toward Asia a centrepiece of his foreign policy.
Vietnam, which borders China, is a key part of that strategy amid worries about Beijing's assertiveness and sovereignty claims to 80 per cent of the South China Sea.
The decision to lift the arms trade ban suggested such concerns outweighed arguments that Vietnam had not done enough to improve its human rights record and Washington would lose leverage for reforms.
Obama told a joint news conference with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang that disputes in the South China Sea should be resolved peacefully and not by whoever "throws their weight around".
But he insisted the arms embargo shift was not linked to China.
