``We request that you immediately cancel your June China trip unless and until these matters have been fully investigated... and the administration's credibility in policy towards China is restored,'' wrote the 152 lawmakers in a letter to Clinton.

While almost all of those signing the letter are Republicans, the move came one day after a majority of Democrats joined Republicans in approving a measure to prohibit exports to China of satellite and missile technology.

The actions come amid a furor over reports the Clinton administration overruled the US Defense and State Departments by easing satellite exports to China in 1996.

Critics say the technology could have helped China's weapons programmes, improving the reliability of missiles pointed at the United States. Republicans aredoing their best to portray the satellite affair as an urgent matter of national security, hoping that as such it will hurt Democrats ahead of November's legislative elections and the 2000 Presidential run.

In the shorter term, the affair seems likely to cloud Clinton's China summit which the White House said is still on just as China's human rights record cast a shadow over Chinese President Jiang Zemin's visit to the United States last fall.

And it also emphasizes the opposite approaches the US executive and legislative branches are taking toward Beijing, with the White House engaging in a policy of constructive engagement and the Republican-controlled Congress pursuing confrontation.

White House spokesman Michael McCurry described the call for canceling the China trip ``a very short-sighted approach''.``It's the reason why the conduct of foreign policy is safer in the hands of the executive branch because Congress will make intemperate judgments that could do real damage to the role the US plays inthis world.''

But while US diplomacy is officially in Clinton's hands, Congress has been playing an active role: using its stage to bash Beijing's records on human rights and trade as well as administration policy.The satellite issue is a ripe one for Republicans because unlike some of Clinton's past troubles it has both an air of seriousness and the stench of politics.

The House members, nearly all of them Republicans, told Clinton they were ``shocked and dismayed that you and your administration would take any action... which would have the effect of harming national security even while interests standing to benefit are contributing to the Democratic Party.'' The decision allowed Loral Space and Communications to export its satellites to China so that they could be launched from Chinese missiles.

NATO expansion

President Bill Clinton today signed the document formally notifying NATO the United States has approved its three-nation expansion and said the goal was to ensure a free and peacefulEurope. In a Rose Garden ceremony, Clinton signed the instrument of ratification that amends the NATO treaty to admit Poland, Hungry and the Czech republic.

``Our goal is to help to build a Europe that is undivided, free, democratic, at peace and secure, a Europe in which Russia, Ukraine and other states of the former Soviet Union join with us to make common cause, a dynamic new Europe with partnership for commerce and cooperation,'' he said.