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Clinton vetoes State Department funding bill

WASHINGTON: President Bill Clinton on Friday vetoed the State Department authorisation bill, complaining it would have severely restricted his ability to conduct U.S. foreign policy with China, Vietnam and other countries.

"This legislation contains many unacceptable provisions that would undercut U.S. leadership abroad and damage our ability to assure the future security and prosperity of the American people," Clinton said in a message to Congress.

"It would unacceptably restrict the president's ability to address the complex international challenges and opportunities of the post-Cold War era," he said. Clinton had promised a veto after Congress passed the bill late last month.

The measure stated that the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act had primacy over the 1982 Shanghai Communique between the United States and China and would have required Washington to provide weapons to Taiwan to enable it to defend itself. The communique committed the United States to reduce gradually sales of arms to Taiwan.

"The 1982 communique has been one of the cornerstones of our bipartisan policy toward China for over 13 years," Clinton said.

"The ongoing management of our relations with China is one of the central challenges of United States foreign policy, but this bill would complicate, not facilitate, that task," he said.

The bill would have placed tight restrictions on U.S. participation in the United Nations and tied upgrading of the U.S. diplomatic presence in Vietnam to Vietnamese cooperation in accounting for U.S. prisoners of war and missing in action.

Clinton said the latter provision would hamper his ability to pursue U.S. national interests in Vietnam and "potentially jeopardise" further progress on POW/MIA issues.

The bill also would have cut State Department funding by $1.7 billion and required the elimination of at least one department-related agency.

Much of the legislation was shaped by Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a longtime critic of the State Department.

The North Carolina Republican refused to act on ambassadorial nominations for months last year after Democrats blocked his original bill.

Clinton on Friday called the measure "inconsistent with the decades-long tradition of bipartisanship in U.S. foreign policy."-Reuter