US supermarket chain Costco opened its first store in China on Tuesday, in a move that directly contradicted US President Donald Trump's call for US companies to withdraw from China and laid bare the reality of China's irresistible market for some US companies despite trade tensions.

After five years selling goods online, the US warehouse retailer on Tuesday morning officially opened its first physical store in the Shanghai suburban Minhang District, near several international schools, and drew thousands of residents who flooded the store and caused chaotic scenes.

As too many people flocked to the store, employees were required to block the entrance temporarily on several occasions to ease numbers inside. An employee told the Global Times that as many as 130,000 people had signed up for store memberships as of Monday night.

Some even traveled hours to take a first look at the new Costco store. "I heard that Costco was opening this brick and mortar store and decided to come and see, but I didn't expect such chaos on the first day," a resident from the Qingpu District in Shanghai, who has been a customer of Costco's online store, told the Global Times. It had taken her three hours to reach the store due to heavy traffic and long distance. 

Reporters from the Global Times entered the Costco store at around 1 pm and found that the store was packed with customers. By around 2 pm, the line for the cashier was dozens of meters long, and one customer told the Global Times that she had been queuing for two hours but was still nowhere near the front of the line.

Zhang Sihan, Costco's Asian president, said that although Costco is not the first overseas membership warehouse retail supermarket that entered China, he believed that Costco's products and services will bring a refreshing experience to Chinese customers," according to a statement Costco sent to the Global Times on Tuesday. Costco is also considering opening new stores in Shanghai, but has not decided on the date and location, the company disclosed when consulted by the Global Times.

"This shows the reality that US companies cannot resist the massive Chinese market of 1.4 billion people, no matter what US officials say," Bai Ming, a research fellow at MOFCOM's Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times. "This is about interest. As long as there is a big market, they will not turn away." 

Bai also said that this displays China's openness toward US companies despite the escalating trade tensions. "As long as they come here and offer good products and services, China's door is always open. This is the example of that."