When US trade negotiators arrived in Beijing in May 2018 for their first round of talks with vice-premier Liu He, they presented him with a strongly worded list of demands outlining their objectives.
Chinese officials thought the tone of the complaint was insulting and would garner them sympathy at home and internationally, according to people involved in the discussions. So they leaked it to a Chinese journalist and it went viral. “We couldn’t believe how fast it got out,” one US official said.
The document remains the best benchmark with which to measure the two sides’ “phase one” trade agreement against Donald Trump’s original aspirations for the talks — and an indication of how far the deal is from the US president’s stated ambitions.
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