North Korea accused South Korea of using civilians as human shields around artillery positions on an island attacked by the North, seeking to justify a bombardment that killed four South Koreans and sent tensions soaring. 
 
 North Korean female soldiers and people clear the snow on a road near the river bank of the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. China, under... (Associated Press) 
 
 A North Korean soldier stands guard outside a post located along the river bank of the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. China, under... (Associated Press) 
 
 A North Korean soldier stands watch along the river bank of the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. China, under pressure from the U.S.... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean marines repair the electronic lines near their military base on the Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's strike... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean marine stands guard with a mourning pin for two marines killed in Tuesday's North Korean artillery attack near his military base on the Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea, Saturday, Nov. 27,... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean marines stand guard near the their military base on the Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's strike Tuesday destroyed... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean marines stand guard near their military base on the Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's strike Tuesday destroyed... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean marines carry two flag-draped caskets containing the remains of marines killed in Tuesday's North Korean bombardment during a funeral service at a military hospital in Seongnam, South Korea,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Burned bottles of alcohol sit on a shelf of a destroyed restaurant on South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's strike Tuesday... (Associated Press) 
 
 A South Korean Marine arrives at a grocery store on South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island to pick up supplies Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's strike Tuesday... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean marines carry coffins during a funeral service for two marines killed in Tuesday's North Korean bombardment, at a military hospital in Seongnam, South Korea, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. (AP... (Associated Press) 
 
 North Korean soldier stand watch outside a post located along the river bank of the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. China, under pressure... (Associated Press) 
 
 A North Korean soldier stands guard outside a post located along the river bank of the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. China, under... (Associated Press) 
 
 Marine veterans salute in front of the portraits of South Korean marines killed in Tuesday's North Korean bombardment, during a funeral service at a military hospital in Seongnam, South Korea, Saturday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Family members of Seo Jeong-woo, a South Korean marine killed in Tuesday's North Korean bombardment, cry during a funeral service at a military hospital in Seongnam, South Korea, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010.... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean marines repair the electronic lines near their military base on the Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's strike... (Associated Press) 
 
 Police tape is stretched across the ruins of a neighborhood on South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's strike Tuesday destroyed... (Associated Press) 
 
 A South Korean Marine picks up supplies at a grocery store on South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's strike Tuesday destroyed... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean marines carry a flag draped casket containing the remains of a marine killed in Tuesday's North Korean bombardment during a funeral service at a military hospital in Seongnam, South Korea,... (Associated Press) 
 
 A burnt-out area of a mountain is seen near the military base on the Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's strike Tuesday destroyed... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean marines prepare to repair their military base on the Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's strike Tuesday destroyed... (Associated Press) 
 
 A South Korean man walks by carrying a bag of food supplies in a destroyed neighborhood on South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean marines carry two flag-draped caskets containing the remains of marines killed in Tuesday's North Korean bombardment during a funeral service at a military hospital in Seongnam, South Korea,... (Associated Press) 
 
 South Korean marines carry a flag-draped casket containing the remains of a marine killed in Tuesday's North Korean bombardment during a funeral service at a military hospital in Seongnam, South Korea,... (Associated Press) 
 
 A North Korean man stands on a boat parked along the river bank of the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010. China, under pressure from the... (Associated Press) 
 
 The comments Saturday came on the eve of U.S.-South Korean war games in the Yellow Sea that have enraged the North and worried neighboring China, and after the South Korean marine commander vowed revenge at a funeral for two marines killed in the barrage. 
 
 Tuesday's attack on Yeonpyeong Island, which houses military bases and tiny fishing communities, also killed two civilians in one of the worst artillery attacks on South Korean territory since the 1950-53 Korean War. 
 
 North Korea's state news agency said that although "it is very regrettable, if it is true, that civilian casualties occurred on Yeonpyeong island, its responsibility lies in enemies' inhumane action of creating a 'human shield' by deploying civilians around artillery positions." 
 
 The North said its enemies are "now working hard to dramatize 'civilian casualties' as part of its propaganda campaign, creating the impression that the defenseless civilians were exposed to 'indiscriminate shelling' all of a sudden from the" North. 
 
 South Korea was conducting artillery drills Tuesday from the island, located just 7 miles (11 kilometers) from North Korea's mainland, but fired away from the mainland. 
 
 The North said it warned South Korea to halt the drills on the morning of the attack, as part of "superhuman efforts to prevent the clash to the last moment." 
 
 The North said that Sunday's planned U.S.-South Korean war games showed that the United States was "the arch criminal who deliberately planned the incident and wire-pulled it behind the scene." 
 
 The South Korean commander, Maj. Gen. You Nak-jun, said the South's retaliation would be a "thousand-fold" as dignitaries and relatives laid white flowers at an altar during Saturday's funeral. 
 
 As protesters in Seoul demanded their government take sterner action against North Korea, the North issued new warnings against the war games scheduled to start Sunday with a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the Yellow Sea. 
 
 The North called the games an "unpardonable provocation" and warning of retaliatory attacks creating a "sea of fire" if its own territory is violated. The comments ran on North Korea's state-run Uriminzokkiri website a day after the North's warnings that the peninsula was on the "brink of war." 
 
 China, under pressure from the U.S. and South Korea to rein in its ally Pyongyang, urged both sides to show restraint while Washington played down the belligerent rhetoric, noting that the weekend war games were routine and planned well before last week's attack. 
 
 "The pressing task now is to put the situation under control and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents," Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton by phone, according to the ministry's website. 
 
 The North's artillery fire Tuesday destroyed civilian homes as well as military bases on Yeonpyeong Island in a major escalation of their sporadic skirmishes along the disputed sea border. The attack _ eight months after a torpedo sank a South Korean warship, killing 46 sailors _ laid bare Seoul's weaknesses in defense 60 years after the Korean War. 
 
 North Korea does not recognize the maritime border drawn by the U.N. at the close of the three-year war in 1953, and considers the waters around Yeonpyeong Island, just 7 miles (11 kilometers) from its shores, as its territory. 
 
 The heightened animosity between the Koreas comes as the nuclear-armed North undergoes a delicate transition of power from leader Kim Jong Il to his young, inexperienced son Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s and is expected to eventually succeed his ailing father. 
 
 Tuesday's attack came days after North Korea revealed a new uranium enrichment program that could improve its ability to make and deliver nuclear weapons, sending the message that new regime is as tough and volatile as ever and highlighting the urgency of restarting disarmament talks with the North. 
 
 South Korea's government, meanwhile, struggled to recoup from the attacks, replacing is defense minister Friday. 
 
 About former 70 special forces troops, wearing white head bands, scuffled with riot police in front of the Defense Ministry to protest what they called the government's weak response to the attacks, pummeling the riot troops' helmets with wooden stakes and spraying fire extinguishers. 
 
 Several hundred police pushed back with shields. 
 
 Elsewhere in Seoul activists held a peaceful, but noisy, rally to denounce North Korea. 
 
 China's foreign minister met with the North Korean ambassador to Beijing, Chinese state media said _ an apparent effort to trumpet China's role as a responsible actor, and placate the U.S. and the South. China has expressed mild concern about the impending war games, in contrast to its strong protests over earlier rounds. 
 
 "The Chinese government is trying to send Pyongyang a signal that if they continue to be so provocative, China will just leave the North Koreans to themselves," said Zhu Feng, director of Peking University's Center for International and Strategic Studies. 
 
 China is impoverished North Korea's biggest benefactor and one of its only allies. 
 
 In Washington, the Pentagon played down any notion that the weekend maneuvers with South Korea _ set to include the USS George Washington supercarrier _ were a provocation. 
 
 "We have exercised there regularly," Capt. Darryn James, a Defense Department spokesman in Washington, said Friday. "And all of these exercises are in international waters." 
 
 President Lee Myung-bak ahas ordered reinforcements for the 4,000 troops on Yeonpyeong and four other Yellow Sea islands, as well as top-level weaponry and upgraded rules of engagement. 
 
 Most of the islanders fled to the mainland after Tuesday's hail of artillery set off fierce blazes that destroyed many of their communities. It will take six months to two years for island communities to rebuild, disaster relief official Kim Sang-ryul said. 
 
 Soldiers assembled toilets Saturday for temporary shelters being built on the island by teams of relief workers. 
 
 In Seongnam, near Seoul, South Korea's prime minister and marine commander joined some 600 mourners attending the funeral for the two dead marines at a packed gymnasium at a military hospital. 
 
 As a brass band played somber music, they placed chrysanthemums _ a traditional mourning flower _ before framed photographs of the two men. One marine's mother fell forward in her seat in grief. 
 
 "Our marine corps ... will carry out a hundred- or thousand-fold" retaliation against North Korea for Tuesday's attack, said You, the marine commander. He did not elaborate. 
 
 Passers-by paused at Seoul's main train station to watch funeral footage on a big screen. 
 
 "Once the enemy attacks us, it is our duty to respond even more strongly," said student Jeon Hyun-soo, 19. "The South Korean people want this." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Kim Kwang-tae reported from Seoul. AP writers Foster Klug and Ian Mader in Seoul, Christopher Bodeen in Beijing and Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report. ||||| DANDONG, China—Beijing on Friday lodged its first official protest of a joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise planned for Sunday, even as the aircraft carrier USS George Washington steamed toward the region. 
 
 North Korea also responded angrily. "The situation on the Korean peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war," the state controlled Korean Central News Agency responded Friday to the maneuvers, which are set to take place in the Yellow Sea between the Koreas and northeastern China. 
 
 Protesters chant anti-North Korea slogans and scuffle with police in Seoul as U.S. and South Korean war game begins. Video courtesy of Reuters. 
 
 The strong talk was the latest fallout from North Korea's hour-long artillery attack of a South Korean island on Tuesday that killed four people. The next day, the U.S. and South Korea said planned joint exercises would go ahead over the weekend, heightening fears in some quarters that already-tense relations between North and South Korea—and their respective international protectors, China and the U.S.—could be heading for a showdown. 
 
 Yet China's outwardly defiant response belies a more delicate political reality: Beijing's continued support of North Korea's erratic, martial regime is beginning to extract real costs. China's statement Friday included a face-saving formulation that appeared to open the door for a scenario China has long sought to avert—a U.S. aircraft carrier, a potent symbol of U.S. military might, plying the edge of Chinese waters. 
 
 China's Foreign Ministry suggested it wouldn't escalate its protests against the naval exercises as long as they took place outside China's "exclusive economic zone," a term of international maritime law for an area where countries enjoy mineral and fishing rights, generally 200 nautical miles from a country's coast. 
 
 View Full Image Associated Press The U.S. military aircraft carrier USS George Washington sets sail from Yokosuka naval base. 
 
 "We hold a consistent and clear-cut stance on the issue," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei was quoted as saying in a ministry statement. "We oppose any party to take any military actions in our exclusive economic zone without permission." 
 
 The U.S. doesn't announce precise locations for such maneuvers for security reasons. But there are parts of the Yellow Sea, including those near South Korea, that fall outside China's exclusive economic zone, giving the U.S. areas where it can conduct drills without incurring China's wrath. 
 
 China's stance appeared firmer in July, when officials said they opposed any military exercises in the entire Yellow Sea. Beijing protested so vociferously that the U.S. and South Korea shifted planned maneuvers to the Sea of Japan, east of South Korea. 
 
 A History of Korean Tensions A detailed timeline of the recent skirmishes between North and South Korea. View Interactive Photos From the Scene View Slideshow Associated Press A train-station TV screen in Seoul shows smoke pouring from Yeonpyeong island Tuesday. 
 
 China has long frustrated U.S. efforts to bring its nuclear-armed neighbor to heel, fearing any radical change could sow chaos in the region and potentially lead to a unified Korea with a U.S. military presence directly on its border. Beijing refused this week to blame North Korea for Tuesday's attack. Privately, its officials maintain, the weekend's exercises could be a grave mistake that risk further provoking the North. 
 
 But current and former U.S. officials who have worked on North Korea said Friday that they saw China in a growing quandary in how to square its support for Pyongyang with the regime's continued provocations. 
 
 Beijing has sought in recent months to deepen its economic and strategic relationship with North Korea, despite U.S. objections, arguing it would help contain leader Kim Jong Il's nuclear work and military provocations. As Pyongyang has continued to challenge the international community, however, China has been placed in an increasingly weakened position to protest U.S. military action. 
 
 "China is having a much harder time in defending its policy, but they only have themselves to blame," said Michael Green, who oversaw Asia policy for the White House during George W. Bush's first term. "You talk to any Chinese official, and they're furious with the North Koreans." 
 
 Beijing is also facing renewed criticism from Chinese foreign-policy experts, journalists and Internet activists who question whether unqualified support for North Korea is still in China's interests. 
 
 China's apparently softened stance on Yellow Sea exercises appears to demonstrate a concern that the North Korean crisis will overshadow a planned trip to Washington in January by President Hu Jintao. It may also reflect an acknowledgment that China would be unlikely to prevent the U.S. and South Korea from staging their drills following the week's attack, requiring a compromise to avoid appearing weak before an increasingly nationalist and demanding Chinese public. 
 
 U.S. military officials insisted Friday that the exercise scheduled for this weekend shouldn't be interpreted as anything but an attempt to deter North Korea from further attacks on the South. 
 
 "This exercise is not directed at China," said Capt. Darryn James, a Pentagon spokesman. "The purpose is to strengthen the deterrence against North Korea." 
 
 U.S. officials on Friday said the Obama administration continues to focus its diplomacy in Northeast Asia on gaining China's cooperation to exert more pressure on North Korea. 
 
 China also made an attempt Friday to mediate among all sides in the crisis, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking by telephone with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, briefed on the phone conversation, said "the secretary encouraged Beijing to send a clear message that North Korea's behavior is unacceptable." 
 
 Mr. Yang, who also talked with officials from North and South Korea, said he was "worried" by this week's developments, according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry. He urged the two Koreas to stay calm and resolve their differences through negotiations, saying it was important to "control the situation" and avoid further incidents, according to the ministry statement. 
 
 President Barack Obama is expected to speak with Hu Jintao on the North Korea crisis in the coming days, according to U.S. officials. 
 
 The White House declined to comment on China's response so far to the North Korea attack, noting that U.S. consultations with Beijing are ongoing. "The president's conversation with Hu Jintao will be extremely important," said a senior U.S. official. 
 
 The U.S. has been planning a naval exercise in the Yellow Sea since July, when an expanded list of training events was announced in response to the March sinking of the South Korean patrol ship Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors and was widely blamed on the North. 
 
 The July exercises also came after China had objected strongly to a speech by Mrs. Clinton in which she said that the U.S. had a national interest in protecting freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Ever since, China and the U.S. have been engaged in a tussle for influence in the region, where many Southeast Asian nations that have territorial disputes with China are looking to beef up defense relations with the U.S. 
 
 Since July, military officials have acknowledged that they understand China's concerns with the exercises but have defended their intention to operate in the Yellow Sea. "These exercises will take place in international waters," Pentagon spokesman Capt. James said. "We routinely operate in international waters, east and west of the Republic of Korea." 
 
 "We have been completely transparent with China about our intent to conduct these exercise and their purpose," added a U.S. military official. 
 
 China has challenged U.S. vessels operating in what it considers its economic zone. In March 2009, Chinese vessels harassed the USNS Impeccable, a U.S. vessel staffed with civilians from the military Sealift Command. The Impeccable was in international waters but within China's exclusive economic zone. 
 
 The U.S. last conducted exercises in the Yellow Sea in October 2009. Those drills also involved the USS George Washington. 
 
 One high-level South Korean official said the maneuvers would be off South Korea's southwest coast, far from the disputed maritime border with North Korea. 
 
 Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com
– As tomorrow’s US-South Korea military exercises loom, China lodged its first official protest yesterday—but left the door open for the exercises to continue. Beijing is balancing its support of North Korea with its fears, expressed only privately, that the country is going too far, the Wall Street Journal reports. Thus, China’s statement suggests that it will only take further action if the exercises infringe on China’s “exclusive economic zone.” Other parts of the Yellow Sea fall outside the zone and near South Korea. China’s stance has softened since July, when officials opposed military exercises anywhere in the Yellow Sea. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton added her voice to the throng asking China to intervene with North Korea and send a message that its “behavior is unacceptable,” says a spokesperson. Meanwhile, North Korea blamed South Korea for the civilian deaths that occurred in Tuesday’s attacks. The state news agency accused South Korea of “creating a 'human shield' by deploying civilians around artillery positions,” the AP reports.