The Chinese economy is not nearly as protectionist as you're making it out to be, and it has seen maybe opening up over the past few decades. Foreign companies

The Chinese economy is not nearly as protectionist as you're making it out to be, and it has seen maybe opening up over the past few decades. Foreign companies have a huge presence in China. Apple phones and computers, European and American cars, American fast-food restaurants and Starbucks, and Western fashion brands are everywhere. Restrictions like joint-venture requirements have been successively removed from ever more industries (for example, they were removed in the automobile industry last year), and tariffs have been reduced to negligible levels for most products. China has censorship, which is why Google and Facebook aren't available in the country, but Apple goes along with the censorship and is not only available but also very popular. The argument that poorer countries need a certain level of protectionism in order to develop isn't new (it goes back at least to Alexander Hamilton), but as China has developed, it has reduced barriers to entry for foreign firms. There's a wide gulf between how China is discussed in the United States and the reality.