Just because the US does it doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make it any less concerning for the other countries in the region. Moral relativism isn't a good defense.
It's a lot worse than that. The US has been a superpower for ~75 years. In that time, the US hasn't been annexing territory in Latin America (and yes, the US is guilty of repeatedly meddling in the affairs of nations in Latin America, and it deserves all the flack it gets for it).
The Monroe Doctrine for example has never included a drive to conquer Latin America and annex it. That doctrine is about driving out European colonialism. The territorial integrity of countries in Latin America has been well served by that shield. If you're Venezuela and your entire nation has collapsed (which it has), you don't have to fear someone conquering you due to extreme weakness and annexing you: the US would never allow that and everyone knows it. Historically, at nearly any other time or place, Venezuela would get invaded and conquered while they're so extraordinarily weak (they have the largest oil reserves on earth after all).
If the US were to behave like China is already (much less what might come next), the US would be threatening to annex Toronto and Vancouver, along with Baja Mexico and the entire Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea.
We don't have to wait for bad behavior out of China. They just used their military to steal territory about four times the size of Texas from their neighbors.
Not the best examples. The US entertained annexing Canada and did annex large swathes of Mexico (not in the last 75 years, true, if you want to arbitrarily draw the line there). China has plenty of stable agreed borders with weak and troubled neighbors. You have your rose colored views but they are somewhat laughable.
> The Monroe Doctrine was a United States policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas beginning in 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to take control of any independent state in North or South America would be viewed as "the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States." .... The Doctrine was issued on December 2, 1823 at a time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved, or were at the point of gaining, independence from the Portuguese and Spanish Empires.
One of the proclaimed reasons for which Japan invaded Asia in the Second World War was to oppose European nations (Japan included Russia and the US in this) colonizing Asia. I am sure to Japan that didn't (and if you probe Japanese deeply, still doesn't) sound very bully-like. Yet, we know what happened.
Let's not beat around the bush. This is a rising country's way of saying, I pwn my backyard (so you can't pwn it) and I will use my might to defend it. Of course the one saying that doesn't sound like a bully to himself.
> One of the proclaimed reasons for which Japan invaded Asia in the Second World War was to oppose European nations
Boy, what a false equivalence.
More from Wikipedia:
> The reaction in Latin America to the Monroe Doctrine was generally favorable but in some occasions suspicious. John Crow, author of The Epic of Latin America, states, "Simón Bolívar himself, still in the midst of his last campaign against the Spaniards, Santander in Colombia, Rivadavia in Argentina, Victoria in Mexico—leaders of the emancipation movement everywhere—received Monroe's words with sincerest gratitude".
This is an important point. The Monroe Doctrine wasn't a pretext to invasion and domination, it was actually assistance against those things. The people protected by it welcomed it.
Fast forward to the present day: Vietnam just hosted a US aircraft carrier, in a very symbolic move. It's not looking for China's help to drive the US out. China is in fact upping the ante in territorial disputes with its neighbors. China looks like a lot more like Japan in the 1930s than the US in the 1830s.
> This is an important point. The Monroe Doctrine wasn't a pretext to invasion and domination, it was actually assistance against those things. The people protected by it welcomed it.
Nah, it was just empty posturing at the time.
Once the US had the capacity to put teeth into it (which wasn't for a long time), it became a pretext for invasion and domination, though.
I made no recommendation about doing what others do, just pointing out some facts, why did everyone trip out defensively? Maybe it's the guilty conscience speaking.
And it is guilty conscience because you know that those problematic actions netted the aggressor (the most successful ones at any rate) plenty of benefits that many people still enjoy to this day.
I don't think the world should go down this road, and there are such things as international norms. That's why when one country ignores them continually and also gains from doing so, it becomes very disadvantageous to refrain and tempting to emulate. In that regard it absolutely matters to talk about the fact that "the US did it" and still does in a another way. Same goes for China or Russia.