Against the backdrop of tension on the Korean peninsula soaring to its highest level in decades, the world’s new presumed superpower decided the moment had come to strut its stuff. China dispatched its most important diplomat, State Councilor Dai Bingguo, to Seoul for hurried talks with South Korean President Lee Myung Bak. Back in Beijing, the Foreign Ministry summoned journalists late on Sunday afternoon to announce that China was calling on the U.S., South Korea, Japan, Russia and, yes, North Korea — all the members of the so-called six-party talks — to gather in December for “emergency consultations” on how to arrest the deteriorating security situation in the Koreas. With images of the bombed-out Yeonpyeong Island still flickering on TV screens across South Korea, where the country’s military was at its highest nonwartime state of alert, China was calling for talks — about the resumption of the six-party talks.
The South Korean response was polite enough, but firm. As a senior official in Lee’s administration told TIME on Tuesday, “We think the first thing for any member [of the international community] to do is to state North Korea’s responsibility for the recent attack.”
