Korean war tensions mount as South rejects talks amid threats from North

North Korea threatened to inflict "a merciless military blow" if the naval war games the US and South Korea launched on the Yellow Sea border Sunday, Nov. 28 encroached on its waters. Hours later, for good measure, artillery fire echoed from the North Korean mainland on the island shelled last Tuesday - apparently from military practices. This added to the jitters in Seoul over the worst incident between the two Koreas in more than 50 years.
Overnight, too, Pyongyang deployed ground-to-ground and anti-air missiles on the border.
Later Sunday, South Korea rejected China's call for urgent Six-Power consultations in Beijing early next month (among North and South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the US) to help resolve the escalating crisis on the Korean Peninsula. The time isn't right, said President Lee Myung-Bak, refusing to back down - almost certainly after consultations with Washington.
Lee has warned of possible "provocative actions" in the course of the four-day war games, in which 10 warships are taking part including the USS George Washington with 75 bomber-fighters aboard. The South Korean defense minister Kim Kwan-jin is urging a tough response to any attacks by the North  - "We need to hit back multiple times as hard" - and street protesters in the South have demanded action in revenge for the four people killed when North Korea shelled the border island of Yeonpyeong last Tuesday, Nov. 23.
To confront North Korea, it will be necessary to first deal with China, which far from declining, is going from strength to strength, compared with the weakened states of Washington and Seoul.
"As America Has Done to Israel."