His visit prompted protests by Vietnamese living in the United States, including loud heckling from a group of about 300 in Seattle who called for Khai to leave the country and carried signs likening him to Saddam Hussein.

Sunday's visit came 30 years after U.S. forces pulled out of Vietnam and marked the 10th anniversary of efforts to normalize relations between the two countries. Khai, 71, was scheduled to meet Tuesday with President Bush at the White House. He also planned a Monday meeting at Microsoft Corp. in Redmond.

At a news conference in a hotel in downtown Seattle, Khai said Vietnam will continue working with the United States to strengthen its economy.

"Despite differences on sensitive issues, it should be noted that there are not major differences between the two countries," he said through an interpreter.

Khai seeks Bush's help in gaining Vietnam's admittance to the World Trade Organization. In the 10 years since diplomatic ties were restored, the United States has become Vietnam's top trading partner. U.S. investment in Vietnam has risen 27 percent each year since a bilateral trade agreement took effect in 2001. The two-way trade was worth $6.4 billion last year.

Khai said increased economic development in Vietnam will improve people's lives and bring stability to Southeast Asia, and asked Vietnamese living in the United States to help bolster the connection between the two countries.

"It is our government's consistent policy to consider the Vietnamese community living abroad as an important and integral part of our nation and our resources," he said.

Demonstrators gathered across the street from the hotel and later blocked the road outside, waving banners and the old gold-and-crimson flag of Vietnam. They shouted "Down with Communists" and held signs that read "Khai is another Saddam Hussein."

The demonstrations would let Khai know that Vietnamese Americans want him to address human-rights abuses that continue in Vietnam 30 years after the war, said Nhien Le of Kent, a former officer in the South Vietnamese Air Force.

"Compared with all the countries in southeast Asia, we are at the bottom. That's why we fight for the freedom," Le said.

Khai's first stop was Boeing Co.'s plant in Renton, south of Seattle, where he was to oversee the purchase of four Boeing 787 jetliners by Vietnam Airlines. He then visited a local Vietnamese family before heading to Seattle.

Chris Flint, a Boeing sales director for Asia, said Vietnam's airline has shown annual growth of more than 20 percent in the past seven years. Such success has helped the country improve life for its citizens, he said.

"You see a lot of improvements from where they were," Flint said.

In an interview with The Associated Press in Hanoi, Khai said his visit "reflects that we have put the past behind us."

"We're hoping to further tap the potential for even better relations between the two countries based on respect and mutual interest," Khai said.

But the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch urged the United States to question Vietnam's civil rights record. The group said it has documented cases of abuses by the communist government, including the arrests of dissidents for promoting democracy or human rights.

Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese have settled in the United States since communists gained control of the country. More than 1 million now live in the United States, including an estimated 130,000 in California's Orange County, where hundreds gathered in protests in the days leading up to Khai's visit.

Sai Nguyen, an organizer with the Vietnamese American Coalition in Northwest America, criticized the Vietnamese government's push to open its economy to foreign investors, saying it would benefit the Communist Party more than the lives of Vietnamese people.

"Now they're talking about investment from overseas, but the goal is not to help the people. It is only to help the party," he said.

Khai said Vietnamese people should heal the wounds left from war with the U.S., and said Vietnam has worked to address concerns about human rights abuses.

"If they come back to the homeland and have returned, in reality, they will have different views," Khai said.

That answer prompted an outcry from Binh Quoc Huynh, a Nazarene minister from Portland, Ore., who said he wrote for the Vietnam News Network. Huynh was escorted from the news conference after calling Khai a liar and a murderer.