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A U.S. aircraft
carrier group set off for Korean waters on Wednesday, a day after North
Korea rained artillery shells on a South Korean island, in a move
likely to enrage Pyongyang and unsettle its ally, China.

South Korea said
the bodies of two civilians were found on the island after Tuesday’s
attack, which is likely to stir up more resentment in the country
against its prickly neighbour.

The nuclear-powered
USS George Washington, which carries 75 warplanes and has a crew of
over 6,000, left a naval base south of Tokyo and would join exercises
with South Korea from Sunday to the following Wednesday, U.S. officials
in Seoul said.

U.S. Forces Korea said the exercise was defensive, and had been planned well before Tuesday’s attack.

“An aircraft
carrier is the most visible sign of power projection there is … you
could see this as a form of pre-emptive deterrence,” said Lee Chung-min
of Yonsei University in Seoul.

A foreign ministry
spokesman in Pyongyang said in a statement it had responded in
“self-defence”, and accused the South of firing shells into its waters
near the disputed maritime border.

“The DPRK that sets
store by the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula is now
exercising superhuman self-control, but the artillery pieces of the
army of the DPRK, the defender of justice, remain ready to fire,” said
the North’s KCNA news agency, referring to North Korea by its official
name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

It said the South
was driving the peninsula to the “brink of war” with “reckless military
provocation” and by postponing humanitarian aid.

The government in
Seoul came under pressure for the military’s slow response to the
provocation, echoing similar complaints made when a warship was sunk in
March in the same area, killing 46 sailors.

Defence minister,
Kim Tae-young, was grilled by lawmakers who said the government should
have taken quicker and stronger retaliatory measures against the
North’s provocation.

“I am sorry that
the government has not carried out ruthless bombing through jet
fighters during the North’s second round of shelling,” said Kim
Jang-soo, a lawmaker of ruling Grand National Party and a former
defence minister.

Tuesday’s attack
was the heaviest in the region since the Korean War ended in 1953, and
marked the first civilian deaths in an assault since the bombing of a
South Korean airliner in 1987.

The United States
and Japan urged China to do more to rein in North Korea after the
reclusive nation fired scores of artillery shells on Tuesday at a South
Korean island near their sea border.

China’s foreign
ministry urged the two Koreas to show “calm and restraint” and engage
in talks as quickly as possible, to avoid an escalation of tensions.

Joint exercise

The joint
U.S.-South Korea drill in the waters between the Korean peninsula and
China will likely enrage Beijing, which has said such previous
exercises are a threat to its security and to regional peace and
stability.

“China will not
welcome the U.S. aircraft carrier joining the exercises, because that
kind of move can escalate tensions, and not relieve them,” said Xu
Guangyu, a retired major-general in the People’s Liberation Army, who
now works for a government-run arms control organisation.

The joint exercise
was reminiscent of a crisis in 1996 when the then President Bill
Clinton sent an aircraft carrier group through the Taiwan Strait, after
Beijing test-fired missiles into the channel between the mainland and
Taiwan.

Seoul calm

Seoul, a city of
over 10 million, was bustling as normal on Wednesday, a sunny autumn
day, although developments were being closely watched by office workers
on TV and in newspapers.

“My house was burnt to the ground,” said Cho Soon-ae, 47, who was among 170 or so evacuated from Yeonpyeong on Wednesday.

“We’ve lost
everything. I don’t even have extra underwear,” she said weeping,
holding on to her sixth-grade daughter, as she landed at Incheon.

Despite the rhetoric, regional powers made clear they were looking for a diplomatic way to calm things down.

U.S. President
Barack Obama, woken up in the early hours to be told of the artillery
strike, said he was outraged and pressed the North to stop its
provocative actions.

South Korea’s armed
forces, technically superior, though about half the size of the North’s
one-million-plus army, warned of “massive retaliation” if its neighbour
attacked again.

Reuters