KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - US President Barack Obama arrived in Malaysia on Saturday for a visit aimed at energising relations with the predominantly Muslim nation and re-focusing an Asian tour repeatedly distracted by foreign policy crises elsewhere.

Mr Obama is the first serving US president to visit since Mr Lyndon Johnson in 1966.

He is looking to underscore security ties amid concern over China's territorial ambitions and to convince a sceptical Malaysian government to support his troubled plans for a Pacific-wide trade pact.