LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California city with a large Vietnamese population has voted to fly the flag of the defunct Republic of South Vietnam instead of existing communist Vietnam's at city functions, much to the dismay of state officials who want to expand trade ties with the Southeast Asian nation.
The city council of Garden Grove in Orange County unanimously approved a resolution late Tuesday after hearing from about 200 impassioned supporters.
The measure instructs the Garden Grove school district to teach students that the yellow banner with three red stripes, which flew over South Vietnam until it was overrun by communist forces in 1975, is the symbol of Democratic Vietnam.
The Garden Grove resolution was patterned on a similar measure passed last month by the city council in Westminster. A large Vietnamese population known as "Little Saigon" straddles the adjacent cities.
The ambassador of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the United States protested the measures to Gov. Gray Davis but state officials could not intervene, said Davis spokesman Russ Lopez.
"This is not the position of the state ... but when it comes to the position of Garden Grove and Westminster, this is out of our jurisdiction," Lopez said.
California Secretary of Foreign Affairs Michael Flores, who responded to the ambassador, "said he hopes we can continue to nurture and grow this new relationship between California and Vietnam," Lopez said. "We are trying to start a dialogue."
A similar proposal floated last month by the Virginia legislature drew angry protests from Hanoi, and was quashed by the U.S. State Department, which informed Virginia lawmakers that the president has sole power to conduct foreign policy.
03/12/03 22:23 ET