Published by: World Tibet Network News, Saturday, July 13, 1996

WASHINGTON, July 11, 1996 (Kyodo) -- U.S. President Bill Clinton's Democratic Party will give top priority in its security policy to ties with Japan and other Asia-Pacific nations in its presidential election campaign, according to a draft party platform obtained Thursday by Kyodo News.

''We know that many of America's most pressing security challenges and most promising commercial opportunities lie in the Asia-Pacific region,'' the draft says.

''Today's Democratic Party strongly supports continued American troop presence in Asia and efforts to promote increased regional security.''

The draft will be finalized in early August for adoption at a party convention in Chicago later in the month when Clinton, along with his running mate, Vice President Al Gore, will be formally nominated as the Democrat candidate for the presidential election in November.

Referring to a joint declaration issued in April by Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto reaffirming bilateral security ties, the draft says the party ''applauds the important new security charter with Japan.''

It also hails ''the administration's close cooperation with the Republic of Korea (South Korea) toward the goal of a unified and nonnuclear (Korean) peninsula, and the deployment of an American naval task force to the Taiwan Strait to ensure that China's military exercises did not imperil the security of Taiwan or the region.''

Clinton and South Korean President Kim Young Sam proposed in April four-way talks, involving their two nations, North Korea and China, for a permanent peace agreement to replace the current truce accord that divided the Korean Peninsula after the 1950-1953 Korean War.

Earlier this year, Washington deployed two naval task groups led by aircraft carriers to monitor what the U.S. called provocative Chinese military drills near Taiwan ahead of the island's first direct presidential election in March.

On China, however, the draft adds, ''The party supports the administration's policy of steady engagement to encourage a stable, open and prosperous China -- a China that respects human rights throughout its land and in Tibet, that joins international efforts against weapons proliferation, and that plays by the rules of free trade.''