Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago approved the party’s 2024 platform late Monday, laying out a list of familiar priorities — from strengthening U.S. alliances in Asia to competition with China — while also criticizing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump over his shaky history with regional allies.
But the platform, which was OK’d by a committee before U.S. President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, makes repeated reference to Biden’s “second term” and does not refer to Vice President Kamala Harris as the new Democratic candidate or offer any details of her views on key issues.
Despite the lack of an update, the Democratic National Committee said that the nonbinding and largely symbolic document still highlighted the party’s accomplishments and goals going forward, after Harris moved to the top of the party’s ticket last month.
“It makes a strong statement about the historic work that President Biden and Vice President Harris have accomplished hand-in-hand, and offers a vision for a progressive agenda that we can build on as a nation and as a Party as we head into the next four years,” it said in a statement.
The platform devotes a chapter to “strengthening American leadership worldwide,” including a section dedicated to the Indo-Pacific region and another one focused on China.
Calling the United States “an Indo-Pacific power,” the document stresses the region’s growing importance to the U.S. in terms of both economics and security, and highlights Biden’s push to build up alliances, partnerships and multilateral frameworks.
From an expanded military presence in Japan to a new defense cooperation agreement with the Philippines to “new forms of regional cooperation on technology, climate, health, and maritime security,” it calls the moves part of a concerted effort to “help deter future regional aggression.”
In particular, it notes the importance of trilateral cooperation with South Korea and Japan, which it says is helping to maintain “peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula and beyond.”
The platform also reiterates a need for Washington to stand by allies and partners “to push back against hostile actions and coercion by China.”
In a section specifically devoted to the economic and military powerhouse, which Democrats have labeled “America’s most consequential strategic competitor,” the platform largely repeats the Biden administration’s talking points that the U.S. will continue to “responsibly” manage its competition with China as it “de-risks” and diversifies the economic relationship.
While the platform mentions Biden by name nearly 300 times and Harris 32 times, it also goes to great lengths to target Trump, singling him out 150 times.
Many of these instances blast the former president’s policies toward Beijing, including a “reckless proposal” to raise tariffs by 10% on goods from China and elsewhere, as well as his stance toward allies such as South Korea, which the platform claims was “directly threatened” by Trump over a trade dispute.
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