The Opium Wars began when the Chinese confiscated the British drug contraband (but property to the British) and lit a bonfire with them, as the opium trade was illegal. There is no comparison.

That was certainly how the British saw it: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lord_Palmerston_to_the_Minist...

I think there is an important difference between trade being forced open at gunpoint, vs. trade deals peacefully negotiated.

What's more interesting though is the inherent impedance mismatch between money and goods (which are highly mobile and flow everywhere) and people and laws (which are much less so).

The crux of the problem is Americans are negatively affected by things that China sells. But what is the remedy?

Should China's government take American citizens' interests directly into account when making its laws? Is that a reciprocal obligation? How far does it extend?

How is it different from the current scenario, where presumably the US State Department identifies the harm, brings it up with China, and negotiates a change to Chinese laws? Should there be a bureaucratic mechanism with quicker feedback? Would that lead to an inevitable loss of effective sovereignty for nations?

I'm not sure what you're angling at with this weird historical whataboutism.

Are you saying that it's acceptable for Chinese companies and gangs to manufacture opiates and ship them off to the USA because Britain and the USA went to war with China 150 years ago to enforce the opium trade?