Formulating Asia Policy Platforms
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

New York is getting ready for the invasion. This weekend, Republicans will descend on the metropolis for the convention to confirm President Bush and Vice President Cheney as their ticket and to showcase the party’s stars – Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
One group arrives earlier to do some of the hard work but receives a lot less credit than the people who make sure the balloon drop goes according to plan: the platform drafters.
Okay, it’s pretty hard to ask anyone to get excited about the platform. There are no more knockdown dragout fights. It’s not even clear who reads them. Their finely crafted language is dismissed as a sop to the faithful who must be stroked before the election, and is seen as no guiding policy after the election. This time around, with the election so close, both parties especially feel the need to avoid divisive debates.
Still, might the platform at least have some predictive value about what the candidate and his team will do?
If so, a Kerry administration Asia policy will be thin and colorless. The Democratic platform contains five sentences in total. One each for China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and one for India and Pakistan.
We learn that a Kerry administration would lead America to “better engage” with China and would “support a peaceful resolution” in the Taiwan Strait. Oddly, Japan is not referred to as an ally, but South Korea is. As for Pakistan and India, “we must work with our friends…in their efforts to resolve their longstanding differences.” That’s it. The short shrift Asia receives is all the more striking since one of John Kerry’s main responsibilities in the Senate has been as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific Affairs.
What was missing? Quite a lot. Allies like Australia, Thailand, and the Philippines are left out.
There is no attempt to register disapproval with China’s growing military power and its persistent threats against Taiwan. Nor did the Democratic platform express America’s longstanding commitment to Taiwan’s defense.
Weirdly, there is no reference to Southeast Asia at all.
And there is no mention of struggles for Democracy in Hong Kong and Burma. Of course, we already know that the candidate and his campaign eschew talk of democracy as an ideal. The candidate thinks the courageous campaign by Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya to enlist thousands of Cubans in a drive to secure human rights and freedoms is “counterproductive.” And, according to Joshua Micah Marshall’s article in the current issue of the Atlantic Monthly, Mr. Kerry’s advisers claim Brent Scowcroft as a guru.
Perhaps the Kerry team did not get into much detail because they don’t really know what Mr. Kerry thinks. For example, on Taiwan, Mr. Kerry has been all over the place, first criticizing, then supporting Beijing’s bogus “one country, two systems” formula for Taiwan though it is obviously working out badly in Hong Kong.
By contrast, the 2004 Republican Party drafters have a lot to go on. The last platform included a strong commitment to working with allies, including Australia, Thailand, and the Philippines. Moreover, the Party vowed not to put “China at the center” of America’s Asia policy, a slap at President Clinton and a sign of how seriously the administration takes its historic alliances. It identified China as a strategic competitor and criticized its lack of freedom, religious repression, and nuclear proliferation.
The GOP pledged to “honor our promises to the people of Taiwan” and reiterated American policy, to help Taiwan defend itself, and committed to sell Taiwan defensive arms.
Not only do the nations of Southeast Asia appear in several places, but Burma’s illegitimate and brutal regime got its own paragraph, and the Party gave strong backing to Aung San Suu Kyi, the persecuted democratic leader.
Of course, even if the Burmese junta hasn’t changed much since 2000, some other things have. Here are a few things that should find their way into the platform:
- a pledge to maintain and enhance America’s presence in the region;
- support for Hong Kong’s democrats;
- condemnation of the cultural and religious annihilation of Tibet and East Timor before normal ties with the Indonesian military are restored;
- a commitment to ending North Korea’s nuclear program and providing haven for its refugees.
And how about an explicit Republican call for a democratic China? Unless nobody really cares what platforms say.