By Andrew BEATTY
The White House is considering lifting a decades-old arms embargo against Vietnam in time for President Barack Obama's visit to the booming Southeast Asian nation this month.
As both countries warily eye China's military build-up in the disputed South China Sea, officials said Obama is weighing an end to the Cold War-era ban on lethal weapons exports.
Obama begins his first visit to Vietnam on May 21, some 41 years after the North Vietnamese army and its Viet Cong allies marched into Saigon, humiliating the world's preeminent superpower.
Now the former foes -- who fought a murderous 19-year war that defined both nations and killed untold thousands -- are putting ideology aside and gradually building deeper trade, military and political ties.
Washington and Hanoi have been pushed together by Vietnam's increasingly vibrant 80-million-people-strong economy, Obama's "pivot to Asia" and a mutual desire to limit China's regional clout.
Under President Xi Jinping, Beijing has taken a more assertive stance on territorial claims in the South China Sea -- deploying materiel to the disputed Spratly Islands.
Recent military reforms announced by Xi dramatically increased navy spending.
With that, some inside the Obama administration argue that the time has come for the United States to help bolster Vietnam with the sale of advanced military equipment.
"It is a relatively easy argument for those who favor lifting the ban," said Christian Lewis of the Eurasia Group, a consultancy.
"The benefits of deepening strategic ties to Vietnam and simultaneously containing China exceed the perceived downside of supplying Vietnam military hardware," he added.
If the ban is lifted, most observers expect sales to start small -- in part to assuage concerns about human rights, and in part not to spook China too much.
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