US vice president Mike Pence declared on Monday that the "era of strategic patience is over" with North Korea, expressing impatience with the speed and willingness of the regime to move toward ridding itself of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Mr Pence told reporters near the Demilitarised Zone separating North and South Korea that president Donald Trump is hopeful that China will use its "extraordinary levers" to pressure the North to abandon its weapons.

Mr Pence, who has called the North's failed missile test a day earlier "a provocation," said the US and its allies will achieve its objectives through "peaceable means or ultimately by whatever means are necessary" to protect South Korea and stabilise the region.