Chinese aggression

sir – When it comes to the future of our relationship with China (Letters, July 17), it should be remembered that friendship, like the tango, takes two.

The most aggressive Communist and totalitarian superpower since the Second World War has crushed resistance in Buddhist Tibet and in Muslim Xinjiang. It has broken international treaty agreements with Hong Kong, infiltrated our universities via Confucius Institutes and our commerce via Huawei to steal secrets.

It has provoked border hostilities with India and sought to dominate the South China Sea by force; it has acted like an imperial power in its Belt and Road Initiative and monitors its own people with Orwellian surveillance.

There is a Tibetan proverb that dialogue with China is “like honey on the edge of a knife”.

John Billington

Montgomery

sir – Whatever we all think of Donald Trump, I suggest that Britain owes him a huge debt of gratitude.

Were it not for the US president’s bullish approach to China, and Huawei in particular, we would without doubt have blindly committed yet more of our key telecoms infrastructure to a company ultimately controlled by China’s ruling communist party, with hugely dangerous implications for our key security and intelligence networks and relationships.

Julian Snell

Bishopstrow, Wiltshire