"Who gave "most favored nation" status to China? Have people ever even spoken about this?"
I recall watching the Republican platform debates on this around 1990. While there was a lot of sentiment against giving the godless commies MFN status, the position that won the day was that the only way we were getting any opening up was via the cultural exchanges and the like that were a part of MFN status. If we didn't get them opened up, they could continue whatever abuses they wanted, without their people being exposed to other viewpoints, and without us having any leverage.
@Suppressed@mystery-akI was in Hong Kong just before it became part of China again in 1997. It was a fantastic city, so many products being made there. I bought Members Only jackets made there for $5 each. Both of us had suits made; took two days for completed suit. Had heavy gold bracelet made in one day.
Then we went to China, by water boat. When we got off boat, customs wrote down every jewelry item we had on. Before we got there we were told to leave our jewelry at our hotel, except for wedding rings. Your watch was inspected and written down. The reason for this was, the govn. didn't want us to give a Chinese anything so that Chinese person would have something another didn't have.
The Chinese govn. determined where we could go and govn. agent stayed with us. In a village we were told every household had the same number of plates, cups, bowls - no one had something another didn't have.
I thought of Hong Kong having to go to this when the Chinese took it over in a few months after we were there. We were told companies in Hong Kong had already sent their money out of Hong Kong so the Chinese govn. would not take it.
We were taken to a govn. building for lunch. We were taken to one govn. store to buy items. I got a tea pot and cups as I bought those in every country I visited.
When we left China, customs counted our jewelry and compared it to what we had when we got there. At some point, I contracted the Chinese flu. Was very sick person on the flight back home. Went to doctor when got home. He said I didn't have pneumonia and gave me meds to get over this flu. I wouldn't go back to China.