From Europe to East Asia, China is sending mixed signals mingling firmness with avoidance of open conflict or even a really nasty quarrel with Washington.

“Stop pointing fingers at us” was the gist of the response of a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, to suspicions voiced by the American secretary of state that China was seriously thinking of arming Russia for the war in Ukraine.

Rebutting Secretary Blinken’s “deep concerns” that China might “provide lethal material support to Russia,” Mr. Wang not only denied any such plan exists but said it was “the United States and not China that is endlessly shipping weapons to the battlefield.”

Mr. Blinken noted on CBS News, though, that Chinese companies are definitely providing “non-lethal support to Russia” for Ukraine while “considering providing lethal support.” That was after he’d met China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, in Munich and gotten nowhere in convincing Mr. Wang to keep hands off Ukraine.

The Blinken-Wang encounter, far from being a diplomatic tete-a-tete, was more like a head-butting. On the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference of delegates from NATO nations and Russia, both sides vented about the Chinese balloon that blew across North America. The meeting did not go well.

Mr. Blinken accused the Chinese of “unacceptable violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law.” Mr. Wang, having already huffed about the “absurd and hysterical” American response to what was termed a mere research balloon, defended China’s right to do whatever it wished with Russia.

Washington’s disappointment over relations with China hardly means war is imminent, though, especially it seems in two flashpoint areas: Taiwan and the Korean peninsula.

In Taiwan, days after Chinese ships and fighter planes had staged yet another show of force in the waters between the independent island province and the Chinese mainland, a four-member congressional delegation from Washington met with Chinese leaders to talk about doing business. 

For California’s Ro Khanna, a Democrat, the point was to talk about semiconductors, considering Taiwan’s global leadership in making them. The mission, unlike that of Speaker Pelosi, which provoked large-scale Chinese exercises in August, was “in no way provocative,” he said.

That didn’t stop Taiwan’s chief legislator, You Si-kun, to fire back at Wang Yi’s claim in Munich that Taiwan had “never been a country” and never would become one. Taiwan, Mr. You said, is in fact “an independent sovereign nation.”

While China in the past might have been expected to explode in wrath over such a remark, a six-person delegation arrived from the enormous Chinese industrial and economic center, Shanghai, on the first official mainland visit to Taiwan since the outbreak of Covid-19 in China more than three years ago.

The mission was to attend the annual Lantern Festival, but the visit showed the desire of the mainland to get along with Taiwan while abandoning none of its claims to the lost province. Greeting the visitors at the airport, one Taiwan citizen reminded Taiwan TV, “We are all descendants of the dragon and all Chinese.”

Against this background, it was difficult to get too excited about two intermediate-range missile tests by the North Koreans, despite the usual rhetoric.

Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency said the 600-millimeter rocket launcher could fire missiles laden with tactical nuclear weapons, as North Korea has repeatedly threatened.

The younger sister of the North Korean leader, Kim Yo-jong, warned that Washington “should stop all the actions posing threats to the security of our state.” Also, she said, South Korea had better “think of the consequences to be entailed by its reckless acts.”

The most newsworthy aspect of her remarks was that Ms. Kim, noted for her harangues against North Korea’s enemies, was speaking out again after having been smothered by a deluge of publicity over Mr. Kim’s 10-year-old daughter.  Mr. Kim and Ju-ae, meanwhile, were seen together at a soccer match between staff members from the defense ministry and the cabinet.

Ju-ae, seen several days earlier with her father at the armed forces annual parade, may be on her way to top leadership someday, but Aunt Yo-jong remains a major figure thus far.