In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.

HANOI — The Obama administration announced Monday that the United States would fully lift a longstanding U.S. embargo on lethal arms sales to Vietnam, a decision that reflects growing concerns about China’s military clout and illustrates the warming bilateral ties between the former enemy nations. 
  
 President Obama unveiled the new arrangement at a news conference with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang during the opening day of his first visit to the country. Obama emphasized that his decision reflected a maturing relationship and deepening cooperation on security and economic investment four decades after the end of the Vietnam War. 
  
 Two years ago, the administration eased portions of the arms embargo that had been in place since 1975 to help bolster Vietnam’s maritime security in the South China Sea, where China’s move to exert more naval control of crucial shipping corridors has angered Vietnam, the Philippines and other nations that have claimed sovereignty. 
  
 Obama said the latest step "was not based on China or any other considerations. It was based on our desire to complete what has been a lengthy process of moving towards normalization with Vietnam." 
  
 With U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, a veteran of the Vietnam War, in the front row at the Hanoi Convention Center, the president heralded "a new moment" in the bilateral relationship. The lifting of the ban "will ensure Vietnam has access to the equipment it needs to defend itself and removes a lingering vestige of the Cold War." 
  
 Obama acknowledged, however, that the United States and Vietnam share a mutual concern over China's provocations in the region, and he reiterated a previous pledge that the United States would "continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows." 
  
  
  
 President Obama and his Vietnamese counterpart, Tran Dai Quang, walk following a bilateral meeting at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi on May 23, 2016. (Reuters/Kham) 
  
 The new arrangement would allow the United States to sell military weapons to Vietnam on a case-by-case basis and would be predicated on improvements in the country on human rights and freedom of expression, White House officials said. 
  
 Ahead of Obama's trip, human rights advocates in the United States had called on the administration to maintain the weapons ban until more progress has been made by the ruling Communist Party. 
  
 "The United States government has been telling the Vietnam government for years that they need to show progress on their human rights record if they are going to be rewarded with closer military and economic ties," said John Sifton, Asia policy director for Human Rights Watch. "Yet today President Obama rewarded Vietnam even though its government has done little to earn it: It has not repealed any repressive laws, nor released any significant number of political prisoners, nor made any substantial pledges." 
  
 At the news conference with Obama, Quang asserted that his country has made progress on human rights. 
  
 "We need to work closely together and expand dialogue together," he said. "By so doing, we can narrow the gap in understanding and narrow the differences between the two countries." 
  
 A spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Beijing is "pleased to see Vietnam developing normal relationships with all countries including the United States, and we hope it benefits regional peace, stability and development." But ahead of Obama's visit, China's state news service Xinhua accused the United States of having “shown no restraint in meddling in a regional situation” in the South China Sea. 
  
 The conflicts in the South China Sea have escalated in recent years after China installed an oil drilling rig off the coast of Vietnam, within the exclusive 200-mile economic zone established under international law. The Chinese military has embarked on a massive land reclamation project in the disputed Spratly Islands, prompting the U.S. Navy to conduct two freedom-of-navigation missions aimed at dissuading Beijing from militarizing the area. 
  
 The Philippines has taken its claims against China over sovereignty in coastal regions to an international tribunal at The Hague, a case being closely monitored in Washington. A ruling is expected in June, but China has said it does not recognize the tribunal’s authority in the matter. 
  
 "Our hope is that ultimately the various claims and disputes can be resolved," Obama said. "We are doing everything we can to promote that." 
  
 Last year, Obama visited the Philippines and announced $250 million in new U.S. aid for maritime security efforts in the region, including Vietnam. In February, Obama hosted leaders from 10 Southeast Asian nations at the Sunnylands retreat in Southern California. 
  
 Patrick Cronin, an Asia-Pacific expert at the Center for a New American Security, said Washington and Hanoi were aiming to convey to China that its neighbors are "determined to provide their own self-defense against aggression and assertiveness. Not looking for a fight but very much just saying, 'We're not going to be endlessly pushed around.'" 
  
 Obama became the third consecutive president — after Bill Clinton and George W. Bush — to visit Vietnam since the normalizing of relations in 1995. Air Force One arrived late Sunday, and the president was greeted on the tarmac in Hanoi with a red carpet and a bouquet of flowers. 
  
 Children dressed in red, white and blue outfits lined the streets Monday as Obama’s motorcade made its way to the presidential palace, an ornate mustard-colored building with sculptured gardens and a massive water fountain. Quang greeted Obama, and they were feted by a military band playing each country’s national anthem during an official welcome ceremony. 
  
 In addition to closer military cooperation, the United States and Vietnam are partners in the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an expansive free trade and regulatory accord that Obama has made a centerpiece of his economic and foreign policy agenda. However, Congress has not yet ratified the agreement, and the major presidential candidates have publicly opposed it. 
  
 Three congressional Democrats — Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.), who supports the TPP, and Reps. Joaquin Castro and Beto O'Rourke, both of Texas, who remain undecided on the pact — flew to Vietnam with Obama on Air Force One. They sat in the front row during his news conference, along with Kerry, national security adviser Susan E. Rice and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. 
  
 Obama said he remains confident that Congress will approve the trade deal. 
  
 "I have not yet seen a credible argument that once we get TPP in place that we are worse off," he said. "We will be in demonstrably better shape." 
  
 But he acknowledged than in an election year, "the politics of it will be noisy." ||||| President Obama and his Vietnamese counterpart announced sweeping new cooperation Monday to bolster both countries' military might, an accord prompted by the rise of China and that until recently seemed inconceivable for the two wartime foes. 
  
 Half a century after the U.S. banned the sale of arms to its enemy in the Vietnam War, Obama lifted the entire embargo. Vietnamese President President Tran Dai Quang responded with a promise of more sweeping access to its strategically valuable ports for the U.S. Navy. 
  
 Human rights advocates were stunned that Obama would take such a step without first exacting pledges that Vietnam’s communist regime will improve its record of human rights violations. 
  
 But Obama said that while he will keep pushing for reform, his decision to strip away the weapons sales ban gives Vietnam more heft against neighbors who “throw their weight around," an unsubtle reference to China's growing influence. 
  
 The decision remained cloaked in secrecy until Obama’s first full day in Vietnam's capital, as did his administration’s assessment of another surprise move — an airstrike that killed the leader of the Taliban, who U.S officials said was blocking peace negotiations in Afghanistan. Obama said he ordered the strike, across the border in Pakistan, in the interest of helping Afghanistan “secure its own country.” 
  
 Together, Obama's two moves appeared to lay out the essence of the global mission he hopes to carry out during his final months in office — turning U.S. attention to the prosperity and opportunities he sees in Asia, while leaving behind the bog of U.S. military intervention in the Middle East. 
  
 He is pitching increased trade and enterprise in Vietnam and Japan this week as he tries to rally support in Congress for a Pacific trade deal. The pact would open up markets such as Vietnam, with its rapidly expanding economy and growing middle class, more broadly to U.S. businesses. As an exhibit for his audience back home, Obama also announced new deals for Boeing and General Electric on Monday. 
  
 Vietnam, with the fastest-growing economy in Southeast Asia and a strategic position on the South China Sea, has been attractive to the U.S. for some time as both a commercial and military partner. President Clinton helped nudge U.S. public opinion toward a postwar view of the country when he visited Vietnam and eased trade restrictions in the 1990s. 
  
 Two years ago, Obama moved to drop part of the arms ban by allowing sales that would boost Vietnam’s maritime surveillance and security capability. Among other changes, his decision allowed American companies to sell boats with machine gun mounts to the government in Hanoi. 
  
 In the meantime, Obama's administration has continued talking with leaders in Vietnam, a government in which the general secretary of the Communist Party is as influential as the president or prime minister. Obama also wanted to work with the chairwoman of the National Assembly. 
  
 In the run-up to the president's visit, emissaries took care not to suggest a quid pro quo for any of the offerings up for discussion. Obama didn’t want to make the access to Vietnames ports contingent on a lift of the ban. Likewise, Vietnamese officials wanted the human rights question separate from the conversations about military talks. 
  
 But as Obama’s departure for Hanoi neared on Saturday, one presidential advisor said talks were “trending toward” a series of agreements, all as part of a larger consensus that a stronger, closer friendship would be good for both sides. 
  
 Human rights advocates dismissed that logic. 
  
 "President Obama just gave Vietnam a reward that they don't deserve," said John Sifton, Asia policy director at Human Rights Watch, adding that the U.S. has for years demanded human rights improvements from Vietnam in exchange for closer military or economic ties, but now appears to have set that aside. 
  
 House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) also questioned the administration's decision to move forward with the arms deal without extracting more concessions. 
  
 "The Obama administration’s ‘pivot to Asia’ should be about security ties, but also standing up for brave Vietnamese believers in democracy when they are under assault in Vietnam," Royce said in a statement. 
  
 Administration officials haven’t ruled out the possibility that Vietnam will free some political prisoners and widen the latitude for journalists, bloggers and dissidents to speak out without fear of retribution. 
  
 Those reforms should come because they’re the right thing to do, Obama said Monday. The U.S. doesn’t “seek to impose our form of government on Vietnam,” Obama said, but will “continue to speak out on behalf of human rights we believe are universal.” 
  
 Obama also argues that the Vietnamese are taking steps to improve working conditions by embracing the labor provisions in his Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal. 
  
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 Quang, while promising greater access to the Vietnamese ports, did not offer specifics about access to Cam Ranh Bay, the valuable port that served as an American supply point during the Vietnam War. 
  
 A reserved spot in Cam Ranh would give the U.S. military the power to respond more quickly to problems in the vicinity, including in the South China Sea, where China is given to territorial threats against its neighbors. 
  
 The bay has been open to the U.S. as a service port for some time, but military use has long been off-limits. White House officials believe that the Navy will have access either to that port or to a newly opened international naval port, possibly as early as this fall. 
  
 The setting of Monday’s events served to highlight how far the U.S. and Vietnam have evolved in their relationship since that spring day 41 years ago when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese. 
  
 For his meeting with Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Tron, Obama traveled to the party headquarters. The two men met in a room decorated in red and yellow under an imposing bust of the communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh. 
  
 As Obama and Quang met with reporters to make their announcements, they did so in the Presidential Palace, where Ho once lived. 
  
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American guns—and the US Peace Corps—may soon be making their way to Vietnam. President Obama, who's making his first visit to the country, announced on Monday that the decades-old US embargo will be completely lifted to give Vietnam "access to the equipment it needs to defend itself" and "remove a lingering vestige of the Cold War," the Los Angeles Times reports. But human rights advocates were disappointed that Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang failed to unveil any fresh policies to go along with the lifting of the ban, though Tran and Obama did announce that the Peace Corps will be allowed to operate in Vietnam for the first time. The full lifting of the 1975 embargo, which follows a 2014 loosening to boost maritime security, was seen partly as an attempt to counter China's strength, the Washington Post reports, though Obama said it "was not based on China or any other considerations. It was based on our desire to complete what has been a lengthy process of moving towards normalization with Vietnam." The White House says that while the US sale of lethal arms to Vietnam is now legally possible, sales will be looked at on a case-by-case basis and approval will be linked to improvements in human rights. (Obama's Asia trip will also include a visit to Hiroshima, which will be the first by a sitting US president.)