An embarrassed US Defense Department has reversed an order issued by Defense Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld's office which had mistakenly suspended American military ties with China.
A Pentagon spokesman said the order, signed two days ago by a Rumsfeld deputy and announced late last night, had misinterpreted Mr Rumsfeld's intention to subject modest bilateral ties such as ship visits and military personnel exchanges with Beijing to a case-by-case review.
The mistake was admitted as chilled relations continued between the two countries over Beijing's refusal so far to return a crippled US Navy EP-3E spy plane held in China since its April 1st mid-air collision with a Chinese jet fighter.
The memo called for a suspension of the military-to-military program until further notice. "That is not his (Rumsfeld's) intention", Navy Rear Adm Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman told reporters only two hours after the suspension order was announced.
"The secretary's intention is to bring all proposed interaction for the China military-to-military (relations) to the Department of the Secretary of Defense staff level for individual, case-by-case review and approval", the embarrassed admiral said in a hastily called meeting with reporters.
Another Pentagon spokesman, reading from the mistaken memo based on Rumsfeld's orders, had earlier said in a terse statement that all of the modest military ties between the two countries had been suspended.
The order was signed on Monday and issued to the military services by Mr Christopher Williams, special assistant to the secretary for policy matters. But Adm Quigley said it had simply misrepresented Mr Rumsfeld's intention to be more careful about such ties.
Although the US military services were told of the order on Monday, no formal notification was ever sent to China, defense officials said.
Beijing, which earlier delayed the return of the EP-3E reconnaissance plane's 24-member crew to the United States, has so far refused to give back the aircraft. But it allowed a team of technical experts from the United States to inspect the damage to the aircraft yesterday.