Chinese trade policies aren't caused by the Opium War. The trade relations that many Americans consider unbalanced are the result of the US and China being at

Chinese trade policies aren't caused by the Opium War. The trade relations that many Americans consider unbalanced are the result of the US and China being at very different stages of economic development. When China began opening up to foreign investment in the 1980s, China had no capital to invest abroad. It didn't matter if the US market was technically open to Chinese investment - there was no possibility of Chinese investment in the first place. The only question was what conditions would be placed on foreign investment in China. Reciprocity didn't matter, because trade flows were entirely in one direction. China progressively opened up from the 1980s onward. WTO membership brought a huge number of changes, including drastic reductions in tariffs and a lot of privatization, breakup and restructuring of state industries. Just to illustrate my point: people complain that China used to not let foreign auto manufacturers own a majority stake in their Chinese subsidiaries. The unfairness is supposedly that Chinese auto companies can own their American subsidiaries. But there were no Chinese auto companies that could possibly have competed in the American market anyways. The reciprocity argument was entirely theoretical. China now has more competitive electric vehicle companies, and it also has more open foreign investment policies for auto manufacturing. One final point is that foreign companies benefitted massively from the ability to invest in China. The idea that China pulled a fast one and took advantage of the developed world just doesn't align with reality.