With reference to Alex Lo’s article (“ Is China the greatest threat to the United States? ”, July 12), we in America are a free people. We enshrined our freedom more than 200 years ago in a constitution whose dictates are preserved by an independent judiciary. We have a free press that delights in criticising our head of state. We are a one-person, one-vote democracy with multiple major and minor political parties. We believe international waterways should not be converted into privately held water parks as has happened in the South China Sea . It is more likely than not that well-run, autocratic one-party states will be more efficient than a raucous, multi-ethnic and multi-hued democracy, but at a terrible price. Freedom should be the birthright of all on this shrinking planet, and the Middle Kingdom has come up short on that fundamental and elementary characteristic of life. I rest my case, Mr Lo. Paul Bloustein, Cincinnati No friends or foes in politics, only interests I refer to “ Beijing has only itself to blame for tensions ” of July 7, where your reader looked at politics from a layman’s point of view. I wonder whether the United States really ever wanted to be friends with China. Looking at recent history, one sees who has disturbed the order around the world. In 1962, a nuclear war almost happened after the US stationed nuclear ballistic missiles in Turkey and Italy while the Soviet Union took revenge by stationing missiles in Cuba. Fortunately, a destructive war was avoided. In 1960, relations between China and the Soviet Union turned sour. The former brothers became foes. The US took this opportunity to thaw its relations with China to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War, as your enemy’s enemy is your friend. It was mutual exploitation. Ironically, politically Russia and China are friends now. The US invaded Iraq twice, in 1990 and 2003, and Syria recently. As a result, the people there have suffered. It also sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001 to hunt down Osama bin Laden , who was captured and “executed” right on the spot without a trial in Pakistan in 2011. Why ‘democratic’ US has no call to champion freedom or liberty The US killed General Qassem Soleimani of Iran with a military drone in Iraq in January. Meanwhile, it did nothing about the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Turkey, simply because US President Donald Trump wanted to maintain good economic and military relations with the Saudis. May I take this opportunity to remind your reader that there are no permanent friends or foes in politics, only interests? Ringo Yee, Tuen Mun