Thursday night’s White House state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping brought together some of America’s most powerful corporate leaders. Their presence reflected an enduring wager: that access to China’s enormous market remains a prize worth courting Beijing to obtain.

During President Donald Trump’s May visit to Beijing, Xi declared that China’s door would “only open wider.” Despite the hype and commercial fanfare, the summit produced narrow, state-directed results: selective tariff relief, new government-to-government mechanisms and a Chinese pledge to buy American coal. These are real gains, but they leave unanswered the deeper question for U.S. businesses: not whether Beijing opens the door, but how much consumer demand exists behind it.