Standard procedure for the Kitty Hawk

Now the story of the USS Kitty Hawk gets really hilarious.
Even well-known observers of China like Billsdue got seriously confused by the sequence of events.

Does the PLA really think they can keep large-scale war games secret? That might be the scariest thing of all...

Not scary at all, but a standard procedure in China, where the country is not really a single-minded top-down command center where all events are mysteriously connected to the few top-guys in the Politburo.
China's government consists of different sets of command structures, who do not communicate with each other, until it is too late. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is never given an advanced warning when the military shoot a satellite out of space, close the civil aviation for their war games, or turn down a US navy ship that has already permission from foreign affairs.
Only when the rest of the world gets - metaphorically speaking - up in arms, they might sort things out between each other. But without extreme outside protests and concerns, they would just prefer to ignore each other. It mostly takes them a week or so to sort things out.
Of course, Western media try to link those incidents other political tensions, with the Dalai Lama or Taiwan, to give them a meaning that is larger than what it is: Chinese government entities not talking to each other.
Today it got funny as, a week after the Kitty Hawk incident, the ministry of foreign affairs changes their initial explanation ("a misunderstanding") into a real political protest linking the mishap with the Thanks-Giving visit of the Kitty Hawk to Hong Kong to those issues the Western media initially suggested.
What kind of protest is that, where it takes the ministry of foreign affairs actually a whole week to find out they have been protesting? It is a misguided way trying to keep up appearances.

Another take: Bill Bishop sends me a link to another viewpoint on the case. China Matters argues that Washington mistakenly announced the first refusal was described by China as a mistake.

I think there’s something different and greater at stake than complaining about Patriot missile sales or President Bush’s grip and grin session with the Dalai Lama.

What I think is at stake here is whether the United States has the right to treat the western end of the Pacific as its private lake—or whether it needs Chinese agreement to sail in the new “Red” sea.

The question still is who is calling the shots in China, and obvious the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not. I would still guestimate its the military doing this relatively independenly, but my guess is as good as anybody's.