Best to remain non-aligned in US-China power play

RECENT Chinese activities (the so-called spy balloons) in the Americas have got some commentators pushing the United States to revisit the Monroe Doctrine (1823), whereby any intervention in the Americas (“backyard” of the United States) by foreign powers is considered a potential hostile act against the US.

Post Second World War, it has been invoked by the “democratic and liberal” US for military and covert interventions in Latin America. Interventions such as the CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba (1961); Cuban missile crisis (1962); Iran-Contra affair (1981-1986) where the Reagan administration covertly sold arms to Iran (in breach of a US-led arms embargo) to fund right-wing Contras in Nicaragua; and the US invasion of Grenada (1983) and Panama (1990).