Japan protests N. Korean missile test attempt

The adviser is traveling with Vice President Mike Pence, who arrived in Seoul in the afternoon to start a 10-day trip to Asia.

South Korea, which hosts 28,500 USA troops, warned of punitive action if the launch led to further provocations.

The U.S vice president Mike Pence has declared the North Korean failed missile launch as provocative behavior.

"Beijing should make clear to Pyongyang through diplomatic channels: if the DPRK in spite of the opposition of the global community (carry out a sixth nuclear test), China should cut off the vast majority of their oil supply and China should support the Security Council to pass new sanctions including this measure", the paper said, referring to North Korea by its official title, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Part of his mission will be to reassure allies in South Korea and Japan that the US will defend them against North Korean aggression without acting in a way that might tip the region into open conflict. The official said, without elaborating, that had it been a nuclear test, "other actions would have been taken by the U.S". Recent satellite imagery suggests the country could conduct another underground nuclear test at any time.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence speaks during a dinner with soldiers and family members after Easter Sunday church services at a military base in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, April 16, 2017.

Japan's Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister's office released nearly identical statements late Sunday, citing the usa announcement about North Korea's failed ballistic missile launch from its east coast.

Speaking to American military personnel in South Korea, he told them they were serving on the "frontier of freedom".

North Korea says a "more vicious" US President Donald Trump has added fuel to the tension.

Even the United Nations Security Council's decision in March to impose tougher sanctions on North Korea - a decision in which China, North Korea's chief ally, concurred - seems to be having little impact.

After a two-month policy review, officials settled on a policy dubbed "maximum pressure and engagement", USA officials said Friday.

North Korea is still defying the worldwide community with its nuclear weapons program, and it now may have enough fissile material for 20 bombs.

The joint U.S. -South Korean military camp is just outside the 2.5-mile-wide DMZ. He was expected to join US and South Korean troops for Easter Sunday church services and a dinner later in the day.

Tensions are heightened between North Korea and the US, and in a statement ahead of the parade, a spokesman for North Korea's military said: "Our toughest counteraction against the USA and its vassal forces will be taken in such a merciless manner as not to allow the aggressors to survive". Pence displays in his office his father's Bronze Star and a photograph of his father receiving the honor.

China also banned all imports of North Korean coal on February 26, cutting off the country's most important export product.

The adviser said the missile's flight lasted four or five seconds.

Impoverished North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

More directly on North Korea, the president returned to a theme of placing much onus on China for reining in the North.

In January, the North carried out its fourth nuclear test, and the following month it conducted a test of a long-range ballistic missile, the kind that could one day carry a nuclear weapon to hit the United States.

Kim has pointed to nuclear weapons as the foundation of his national defense strategy and has openly sought a nuclear weapon that could strike the continental United States.

Pence is in Seoul at the beginning of a 10-day trip to Asia in what his aides said was a sign of US commitment to its ally in the face of rising tension.

Sunday's launch comes a day after the 105th birthday of late North Korea founder Kim Il Sung.