South Korea to Boost Island Defenses After Artillery Exchange

SEOUL, South Korea — Concerned that its military’s response to a North Korean artillery attack was too feeble and passive, South Korea said on Thursday it would bolster its island defenses and make its rules of engagement more muscular. Seoul also said it would press China to use its considerable diplomatic leverage with the North to avoid an escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula.
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President Lee Myung-bak held a security meeting Thursday morning at the Blue House, the presidential compound in Seoul, where the new strategies were drafted.

North and South Korea exchanged barrages of artillery fire on Tuesday afternoon. The battle killed two marines and two civilians on the small South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, which sits about nine miles off the North Korean coast.

North Korea said it was provoked by South Korean artillery fire landing in its territorial waters. The South said its artillery batteries responded to an “unprovoked and premeditated” attack on Yeonpyeong.

Beijing’s response to the clash has so far been quite muted, and a senior government official in Seoul said privately on Thursday that South Korea was going to “pull out all the stops and make every diplomatic effort with China.”

But a visit to Seoul by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was canceled on Thursday, because of what Beijing said were scheduling conflicts. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said at briefing in Beijing that China favored restarting the so-called six-party talks on the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear programs.

The talks involve the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the United States. They broke down when North Korea walked out on them last year, although in recent months Pyongyang has sought to renew the process.

Through its official news agency, Pyongyang warned of further military retaliation if provoked by South Korea.

It was unclear from the North Korean statement whether the arrival of a United States aircraft carrier group off its western coast would be seen as a provocation. The carrier George Washington — with 5,700 personnel and about 85 fighter planes — was headed Thursday to the Yellow Sea. The carrier group will join with South Korean forces for a four-day series of military exercises that are scheduled to start Sunday.

At the Chinese Foreign Ministry briefing, the spokesman said Beijing would be paying “close attention” to American naval movements.

The American general who heads the United Nations Command in South Korea, Gen. Walter L. Sharp, had called for military talks with senior officers of the North Korean People’s Army “in order to initiate an exchange of information and de-escalate the situation.” The North rejected that idea on Thursday.

At the Blue House meeting, Mr. Lee said, “We should not drop our guard in preparation for the possibility of another provocation by North Korea,” according to his chief spokesman, Hong Sang-pyo. “A provocation like this can recur any time.”

South Korean defenses on its five coastal islands in the Yellow Sea had been set up primarily to guard against possible amphibious landings by North Korean troops. Critics said Thursday that the military had not anticipated the possibility of an attack by North Korean artillery batteries, which are reportedly situated in caves along the North’s coastline.

“Now an artillery battle has become the new threat, so we’re reassessing the need to strengthen defenses,” Defense Minister Kim Tae-young told lawmakers. The new measures include doubling the number of howitzers and upgrading other weaponry.

A commentary in the conservative South Korean daily Chosun Ilbo assailed the military about the artillery exchange, saying the military had been outgunned and underprepared.

“The minister practically admitted that the military failed to respond to a new type of North Korean threat” in the Yellow Sea, the newspaper said, charging that “the military has been implementing reforms that weaken defense capabilities” on the islands.

New rules of engagement will be based on whether military or civilian targets are targeted, said Mr. Hong, the presidential spokesman, adding that the move was to “change the paradigm of responding to North Korea’s provocations.”