American ingenuity was on full display in August 1914, when Steam Ship Ancon became the first vessel to sail the Panama Canal. Ordered by President Theodore Roosevelt, the construction of a waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific was a building block of what became known as the American Century. Come November Chairman Xi will declare open a deep-sea megaport at Chancay, Peru, hoping it will usher in a Communist Chinese millennia.

The government at Lima removed the final hurdle this week to Beijing’s $3.5 billion project that would directly connect Chancay to Shanghai. Cargo ships that needed to go north to Mexico or California to reach the Far East can now sail straight out, shaving off trade costs. As President Boluarte of Peru visits Beijing this week, Mr. Xi can now complete his most ambitious project in the hemisphere. The port is expected to start operating in November

The Communist behemoth is increasingly dominating the resource-rich Western hemisphere. Peru and Panama are Latin America’s largest partners of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, Mr. Xi’s project aimed at tying the Global South to Beijing’s vision of ending America’s superpower status. Shortly after Panama severed ties with Free China in favor of Beijing in 2017, Communist Chinese investment in projects around the canal ballooned. 

While Panama rejected Beijing’s attempt to build an embassy at the canal’s entry point, it didn’t mind tunnels, overhead bridges, and other construction that could control traffic in the strategic waterway. The even more ambitious Peruvian megaport would allow Mr. Xi to complete his dominance over the extraction of Latin America’s minerals and other goods, like food. South America increasingly resembles a Chinese banana republic.

Diplomats from impoverished countries often say that Beijing officials always ask what kind of investment they need in their countries, while Americans lecture them about democracy and values. Sure, in the long run free markets are more beneficial for developing countries than Beijing’s brand of managed economy. Yet, Belt and Road promises of instant development are alluring, and Latin leaders ignore the potential enslavement they entail. 

The Hong Kong-based company that got the final green light to complete the Peruvian seaport, Cosco, is a civilian entity, but Beijing’s military has access to such government-controlled companies. Chancay is 4,500 miles from San Francisco. The new port will put the People’s Liberation Navy on our “twenty yard line,” General Laura Richardson of our Southern Command told Congress in March. She later called the matter “concerning.”

Beijing’s domination of the Western Hemisphere resources and its military threat alarms General Richardson. President Biden, in contrast, all but ignores the advances of our most formidable global foe. Nearly a century before TR’s ambitious canal project, President Monroe propounded his famous doctrine. Now America highlights crises around the globe even as it shrugs off perils that increasingly grow in the hemisphere Monroe sought to protect.