And then I opened up the paper and saw that the negotiations for a peaceful resolution were taking place in Haikou, the capital of the Hainan Island, where the Navy spy plane made its emergency landing.

Suddenly, it all made sense: Perhaps the negotiations were not merely taking place in Haikou, but were actually being conducted in haiku, a popular form of Japanese minimalist poetry.

If so, our negotiators, unable to communicate in this ancient language of diplomacy, are clearly hamstrung. According to my source at the Pentagon, American officials began the discussions with a salvo that was, in the true spirit of haiku, a vague, unsubstantive and ethereal message of disapproval:

Beijing, interpreting this as an escalation in a war of words, answered back with its own view:

The American side, seeing this as a non-issue, decided to get to the heart of the matter:

The Chinese assured the Americans that the crew of the crippled plane was being treated fairly:

Fearing that the Chinese were sending a message that the crew would be held prisoner for weeks, the Americans tried a frontal approach:

So Beijing responded as anyone would, given the circumstances:

The Americans took umbrage, but, in the interest of diplomacy, admitted to a small amount of culpability:

The Chinese, naturally, saw this as blaming the victim:

The Americans denied culpability:

The Chinese, in turn, sought to put the blame back on the American mission itself and to send a message about Chinese superiority:

The Americans, who also want to host the 2012 Olympiad, then raised the stakes:

Beijing, interpreting this as a call to arms, held its ground:

With little progress being made, the American negotiating team decided to get personal:

Beijing answered back with what observers call the classic ‘Oh, yeah?’ approach:

America then responded with a true low blow:

That left Beijing with little room for anything but a classic attack on the American economy:

America upped the ante:

So Beijing hit back with a haiku about America’s spate of school shootings:

And that’s where we stand at the moment. American officials are hard at work drafting a retort to this latest Chinese jibe, but are reportedly having trouble fitting ‘Tiananmen Square massacre’ into the classic five-seven-five pattern while the Chinese are fiddling with a haiku about the American economy that opens with the verse ‘Greenspan is a boob.’

Negotiations continue.