Chinese vice premier Liu He to travel to Washington on Thursday

China's top trade official will travel to the States this week even after the US administration's decision to backtrack on a promise not to further increase its tariffs on the Asian giant's exports, in response to what Washington said was backsliding by Beijing on various of its recent commitments.

China's Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday that vice premier, Liu He would travel to Washington for talks on 9-10 May.

Already on 2 May, China's Global Times had reported that negotiations between the two sides might have hit an "impasse", citing Huo Jianguo, vice chairman of the China Society for World Trade Organisation Studies.

According to Huo, and among various other issues, the Chinese side was arguing that the new compliance mechanism being pursued by the US would override the WTO's own, making it redundant.

On the following day, the South China Morning Post reported that China believed the US was trying to force a quick close of the negotiations over the coming few weeks.

Then, last Sunday, the US President said Washington would finally move ahead and raise its 10% tariff on $200bn-worth of Chinese goods to 25%, alleging that talks were progressing too slowly, and that duties on the remaining $325bn-worth of Chinese goods might follow "shortly".

The latter would see almost all Chinese exports to the US hit by levies.

According to US Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, on Monday: "We felt we were on track to get somewhere. Over the course of last week we have seen an erosion of commitments by China. That in our view is unacceptable."

More specifically, at the weekend China had sent a revised text for the trade deal which included new language on multiple issues which had already been negotiated.

US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said those changes had the "potential potential to change the deal very dramatically."

"We are not willing to go back on documents that have been negotiated in the past."

The tariff increase was set to kick-in at midnight on 10 May, although Mnuchin said the US might reconsider its decision if talks got back on track.