China has started trade negotiations with the United States: it wants to amend almost all previous agreements

The diplomatic cable of Beijing arrived in Washington on Friday night with systematic editions to a draft of a commercial agreement of nearly 150 pages which would trigger months of negotiations. It was a way of questioning everything that had been advanced in the complicated negotiations between the two major economic powers of the world. Donald Trump's government has reacted with annoyance and tension has shaken the stock markets of all continents.

The document has been plagued by reversals by China undermined the central demands of the United StatesAccording to informed sources from the US government and three other private sector actors informed of the conversations.

In each of the seven chapters of the project, China withdrew its commitment to amend laws to resolve major complaints that led the US to trigger the trade war: theft of intellectual property and US trade secrets, forced technology transfers, competition policy, access to financial services and currency manipulation.

As it was known until a few days ago, only the discussion was pending because of the verification of compliance with the agreement. But China decided to change the points that, supposedly, were already defined.

US President Donald Trump responded Sunday in a tweet in which he promised to raise tariffs from 10 to 25% on Chinese products valued at $ 200 billion on Friday, the day before the planned visit of the vice – Chinese premier. Liu He in Washington to continue negotiations.

The The elimination of the binding legal language of the project has had a direct impact on the highest priority US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who considers that changes in Chinese laws are essential to verify compliance after years of what American officials have called promises of empty reforms.

Lighthizer has lobbied for a compliance regime more similar to the one used to impose economic sanctions – such as those of North Korea or Iran – to the typical trade agreement.

"This undermines the central architecture of the agreementsaid a Washington-based source who knows the conversations.

Lighthizer and Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, were surprised by the magnitude of the changes made to the project. The two journalists told reporters on Monday that China's retraction triggered Trump's tariff response, but did not provide details on the depth and size of the revisions.

Liu told Lighthizer and Mnuchin last week that they must have confidence that China will honor its commitments through administrative and regulatory changes, according to two sources. Both Mnuchin and Lighthizer considered this unacceptable., before Chinese history of failures to reform promises.

White House spokespersons, the Trade Representative and the Treasury Department did not respond immediately to requests for comment. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a hearing Wednesday that the resolution of trade disputes a "negotiation process" and that China does not "avoid problems".

Geng referred specific questions on trade negotiations to the Ministry of Commerce, which did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters by fax.

A private sector source informed of the meetings said that the last round of negotiations has not been very good since "China has become greedy".

"China has denied a dozen things, if not more (…) The conversations were so bad that the real surprise was that Trump would wait until Sunday to explode"the indicated source.

"After 20 years doing what you want with the United States, it seems that China still fails in its calculations with this government"he added.

(With information from Reuters / By David Lawder, Jeff Mason and Michael Martina)