Kim Jong-un had signalled that his regime was working on a missile capable of reaching the United States. Credit:AP The launch, from the Sinpo region on North Korea's east coast on Wednesday. Sinpo is the site of a North Korean submarine base. It comes just ahead of a summit between US President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping Trump will raise how to rein in North Korea's nuclear program in what a senior White House official said on Tuesday would be a test for the US-Chinese relationship. The two leaders are to meet on Thursday and Friday at Trump's Mar-a-Lago retreat on the Atlantic coast in Palm Beach, Florida.

It will be their first face-to-face meeting since Trump took office on January 20, and trade and security issues are to figure prominently in their talks. "We would like to work on North Korea together," the official said in a briefing for reporters. "This is a test for the relationship." Trump wants China to do more to exert its economic influence over unpredictable Pyongyang to restrain its nuclear and missile programs, while Beijing has said it does not have that kind of influence. In an interview with The Financial Times last weekend, Trump held out the possibility of using trade as a lever to secure Chinese co-operation. In the same interview, Trump was quoted as telling the paper that Washington was ready to address the North Korean threat alone, if need be.

The White House official - speaking just as North Korea fired the projectile - said the situation had become more urgent. "The clock is very, very quickly running out," the official said. "All options are on the table for us." Trump does not plan to give in to Chinese pressure for the US to withdraw its THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea, which Beijing considers destabilising. Trump has said he expects the meeting to be a difficult one, given his belief that China has taken advantage of US trade policies to help its economy and hurt US job creation. He plans to discuss with Xi a new "elevated" and streamlined framework for a US-Chinese dialogue with "clear deadlines for achieving results", the White House official said.

He will discuss significant trade and economic concerns with Xi in what the official called a "candid and productive manner". US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last month that all options, including military, were on the table to counter the nation's nuclear threat. Experts and officials in the South and the US believe Pyongyang is still some time away from mastering all the technology needed for an operational ICBM system, such as re-entry and missile guidance. Reuters, Bloomberg