On December 2, 1823, President James Monroe gave his 7th State of the Union address before Congress, using the occasion to advance what would later become known as the Monroe Doctrine.

After a string of former Spanish colonies in the Americas declared their independence, Monroe said the United States would oppose further predation in the region from the European empires to preserve the newly emancipated states.

As American power exploded during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Monroe Doctrine evolved and increasingly came to mean Washington’s opposition to any potentially hostile foreign power establishing itself in the Americas. With this and a variety of more mercantile motives in mind, the U.S. made a series of military interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean.

However, the past few decades have seen a dramatic increase in Chinese economic and diplomatic influence across the region, with one foreign policy expert telling Newsweek that Beijing wants to “turn the Caribbean Sea into a Chinese lake.”