Last week’s missive forecast rough continuity in U.S. foreign policy following this month’s changeover of presidencies. After reading it a correspondent wants to know whether Communist China’s “involvement” in the Western Hemisphere might prompt political leaders in Washington DC to invoke the Monroe Doctrine to curtail such involvement. Such a move is not impossible; it is doubtful. The doctrine was a unilateral foreign-policy statement used to justify repeated armed intervention in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico a century ago. These episodes are seared into Latin American historical memory. If it’s wise the new U.S. administration will fashion a doctrine of its own to cope with the China challenge.
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