China retains a massive domestic market for its goods and produce even as exports grow beyond the most optimistic estimates

China retains a massive domestic market for its goods and produce even as exports grow beyond the most optimistic estimates. This is a country that has sustained 28 years of GDP growth at an average of 8 per cent per year. China has arrived as a world power, and its potential for economic ascendancy cannot be denied.In truth, however, Mr Harding’s letter did not read like an assessment of China’s economic potential. Rather, it is drenched in the fear and ignorance that the US and the west exhibit towards cultures and societies alien to our own. Labelling China as “repressive and totalitarian”, he ignores the strides already made towards improving human rights, and the prospect for even greater change as our economic and cultural relations with China improve. The world should welcome the emergence of a new economic force with such potential for the betterment of the entire region.The anti-American, Left Bank liberals Mr Harding describes do not “eagerly anticipate” the growth of China; we recognise it as a fact that must be faced. Not with the suspicion and paranoia that the US faced Russia with last century, but with a renewed spirit of co-operation.IAN WILLIAMSONAIRDRIE, NORTH LANARKSHIRE Bad advice about breast-feeding Sir: Many women have bad experiences with motherhood, but only women journalists decide to cheer themselves up by writing articles.

Bronwen Eyre’s article about breast-feeding (25 April) was a classic of the genre.It is not her fault, of course, that she had patchy, highly contradictory advice on breast-feeding. For example, why did she keep sitting in a chair all the time to feed? Was she not taught how to feed a baby while reclining comfortably on her side? Was she not advised to keep up her fluid intake? Why did nobody show her how to position her baby so that she did not develop backache? Why did she get bored? One great advantage of breast-feeding is that it leaves a hand free to hold a book or a phone. And how relaxing can it have been to insist on her man making notes of which breast the baby was on, for heaven’s sake?For the confusing advice Eyre had from her midwives there is no excuse; but she could have sought more advice, perhaps from a breast-feeding counsellor. An 18th-century aristocrat would have cheerfully hired a wet-nurse and left it at that. But because Eyre is a 21st-century journalist she has to prove to everyone not only that she made the right decision in giving up breast-feeding but also that the course she rejected is an evil in itself.There is nothing particularly wrong with her decision.

What is wrong is to force her own attitude on to the many pregnant women and new mothers who will have read her article; she has sown fear and doubt; their confidence in their own ability to breastfeed has been undermined.SARAH JOHNSONLONDON W12Sir: Bronwyn Eyre has been very brave to stick her head above the parapet on the subject of breast-feeding. Your statistics accompanying the article show that a large number of women give up breast-feeding within the first six weeks, yet articles and letters to the editor on this subject invariably give a cosy image about how rewarding and easy it is. Although this is true for some women, for a large number it is not.Bronwyn did what was best for her son and should not be berated for this. There is more to being a good mother than how you feed your baby and if stopping breast-feeding meant she was able to enjoy her son then she should be congratulated.