Whether deliberate or accidental, ambiguity seems to be the order of the day for US diplomacy. And it is paying some dividends, at least in terms of reaction abroad to President Bush's missile defence speech.
But China can be excused its confusion. The Bush administration on Wednesday withdrew a memo from the US Secretary of Defence, Mr Don Rumsfeld, cutting all military contacts with Beijing. Hours after the memo was leaked and reported worldwide, a spokesman for the hawkish Mr Rumsfeld, Rear Adm Craig Quigley, said the document was a mistake.
According to the New York Times the White House had intervened to suppress it. Adm Quigley told reporters that the Rumsfeld aide who wrote the memo had "misinterpreted the Secretary's intentions".
"His actual intention is for all elements of the military-to-military programme to be reviewed and approved on a case-by-case basis by the Department of Defence," the admiral said.
The net effect, however, is a downgrading of contacts which have been seen as largely favouring China, further evidence of the determination of the US to make China pay a price for the EP-3 incident. What price the administration appears divided on.
The deliberate ambiguity of the missile speech won conciliatory comments from allies and Russia alike, willing to give Mr Bush the benefit of the doubt and hoping to influence the shape of any final US system.
"When you compare this to what we heard in the election campaign, this is essentially a co-operative sign," the German Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, said.
A French Foreign Ministry statement noted: "We hope these consultations will touch upon all the questions raised by the project."
The Russian Foreign Minister, Mr Igor Ivanov, said Russia was ready for consultations. But he insisted the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty should be retained.
Such a view may be naive, the German newspaper Sud deutsche Zeitung suggested. "In Europe, there is a suspicion that the Bush administration has confused the verbs `to consult' and `to inform'," it said.
Meanwhile, at home the Democrats have shown every sign they intend to oppose what is seen as technologically dubious, a scaled-down but destabilising "Son of Star Wars".
Senator Tom Daschle warned that "a missile defence that undermines our nation politically, economically and strategically - without providing any real security - is no defence at all."
China warned Mr Bush yesterday that his missile plans were a threat to world peace and accused him of looking for media attention. The Xinhua news agency warned that discarding the ABM treaty would "spark a new round of arms race, which will be unfavourable to world peace, development and stability".
