What a mess. Any outsider wondering quite what is going on with the final stages of United States Congressional approval of permanent normal trading relations (PNTR) with the mainland can be excused for feeling a little confused.
Nearly six weeks since the vote easily cleared the House of Representatives there is still no sign of exactly when the Senate will stage its own poll. Ironically, passage of PNTR through the Senate has always been seen as a far easier proposition than the House. That remains the case, but getting it to the floor has been far more tricky than many expected.
Senators have just returned to Washington from a week's recess for Independence Day, but on July 28 they take off for a month's summer break. Given that they generally sit for three days each week, there are just nine working days until then either to push the vote through or at least schedule a date to avoid further slippage when they return in September.
All across Washington, pro-trade supporters from the Clinton administration, business and diplomatic lobbies are working furiously once again to concentrate Senatorial minds, warning that speed is of the essence. Delays only add risk, given the ever-present potential for election-year politics or a fragile Sino-US relationship to raise sudden new tensions in the debate.
'We are entering the most tense period since the House of Representatives vote,' warned Chris Jackson, director-general of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Washington, after a meeting yesterday with Hong Kong's own paid lobbyists on Capitol Hill.
'The political atmosphere is becoming very volatile indeed.' US Chamber of Commerce president Thomas Donohue hinted at the frustration too, saying: 'It is a time to take a vote.' He said it would be a 'terrible mistake' to delay PNTR any longer and allow it to get bogged down in election politics.
Much of the anxiety stems from the office of Trent Lott, the leader of the Senate's Republican majority and the most powerful figure in terms of organising the mountain of work the body has got to deal with in coming weeks.