BEIJING — As tensions mounted on the Korean Peninsula, Adm. Harry Harris made a dramatic announcement: An aircraft carrier had been ordered to sail north from Singapore on April 8 toward the Western Pacific.

A spokesman for the Pacific Command linked the deployment directly to the “No. 1 threat in the region,” North Korea, and its “reckless, irresponsible and destabilizing program of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.”

Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters on April 11 that the Carl Vinson was “on her way up there.” Asked about the deployment in an interview with Fox Business Network that aired on April 12, President Trump said: “We are sending an armada, very powerful.”

The U.S. media went into overdrive and Fox reported on April 14 that the armada was “steaming” toward North Korea.

But pictures posted by the U.S. Navy suggest that’s not quite the case — or at least not yet.

A photograph released by the Navy showed the aircraft carrier sailing through the calm waters of Sunda Strait between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java on April 15.

In other words, on the same day that the world nervously watched North Korea stage a massive military parade to celebrate the birthday of the nation’s founder Kim Il Sung, and the press speculated about a pre-emptive U.S. strike, the U.S. Navy put the USS Carl Vinson, together with its escort of two guided-missile destroyers and a cruiser, more than 3,000 miles southwest of the Korean peninsula — and more than 500 miles southeast of Singapore.

Instead of steaming toward the Korea peninsula, the carrier strike group was actually headed in the opposite direction to take part in “scheduled exercises with Australian forces in the Indian Ocean,” according to Defense News, which broke the story.

The presence of the U.S. carrier strike group, and the threat of a U.S. military strike on North Korea, had weighed heavily on Chinese minds and in the media here. Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned “storm clouds” were gathering and the risk of conflict rising.

The news that the ships weren’t where everyone assumed them to be was greeted with some glee in the Chinese media on Tuesday.

“Tricked badly!” the Global Times exulted on its social media account. “None of the U.S. aircraft carriers that South Korea is desperately waiting for has come!”

Was it all a misunderstanding, or deliberate obfuscation?

Cai Jian, an expert from the Center for Korean Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said the whole episode was part of an elaborate game of “psychological warfare or bluffing” by the United States, arguing that Washington never really intended to launch a military strike on North Korea right now.

“At the peak of the standoff, psychological warfare is very important,” he said.

Ross Babbage, a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for Strategic Budgetary Assessments, a Washington-based think tank that focuses on the military, said the move may be “military signalling” from the U.S.

“It’s more than a bluff,” he said. “A bluff suggests you’re not serious. My understanding is that this U.S. administration is dead serious, it’s been 40 years of trying to get the North Koreans to back away from the nuclear weapons.”

In any case, the carrier strike force may indeed be finally heading north now. The Korea Herald reported on Monday that the Carl Vinson is due to arrive in South Korea’s eastern waters on April 25, in time for another important date on the North Korean calendar: the anniversary of the army’s founding.