North Korea fires ballistic missile off east coast

President Donald Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday for a whirlwind 24-hour summit to commence discussions on issues of paramount importance to the administration: trade and North Korea.

Both the countries operate under the terms of World Trade Organization (WTO) and USA now does not have free trade deal with China. The official said that the USA would like to see the bilateral relationship based on reciprocity as the Trump administration wants to work with China to reduce systemic trade and investment barriers that they have created leading to an uneven playing field for the U.S. companies.

Instead, Xi is expected to offer a package of “sweeteners” that Trump can tweet as victories, mostly promises to increase Chinese investment and job creation in the US, which could rival or surpass what Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered during his visit to the U.S.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesman, Lee Duk-Haeng, said the launch was a “threat against peace and stability”. Many weapons experts say the North could have a functioning nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the continental US within a few years. The South’s national security council convened an emergency meeting.

US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, released a brief response to the launch.

Trump wants China to do more to exert its economic influence over unpredictable Pyongyang to restrain its nuclear and missile programs.

China has remained largely sanguine ahead of the summit, with Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang telling reporters that “both sides look forward to a successful meeting so that a correct direction can be set for the growth of bilateral relations”. Zheng Zeguang, China’s vice minister of foreign affairs, told reporters Friday that demand for American goods would grow if Chinese internal demand expands with further economic development, implying the likelihood of increased imports of US manufactured and agricultural goods.

In a town hall meeting with business CEOs on Tuesday, Trump said on his upcoming summit with Xi, “I’m sure we’re going to have a fantastic meeting and we’re going to talk about a lot of things, including, of course, North Korea”, which he described as “really a humanity problem”.

In 2009, weeks after Barack Obama took office for his first presidential term, it fired a long-range rocket in what critics called a disguised test of its long-range missile technology.

Regional markets appeared to shrug off the latest North Korean missile test early in the morning.

“It was very polite, they usually shoot more than one missile”, he said.

“North Korea launched yet another intermediate range ballistic missile”, he said in the statement. The missile was tracked until it landed in the Sea of Japan at 11:51am.

North Korea rarely misses an opportunity to conduct a banned missile test to coincide with a high-profile world event that’s expected to discuss the impoverished yet nuclear-armed country.

U.S. Pacific Command said in a statement that the missile was initially assessed as a KN-15 medium-range ballistic missile.

The missile, which flew about 60km, was launched from Sinpo, a port city on the North’s east coast. With American aircraft carriers and fighter jets brought to South Korea for the exercises, North Korea views them as a pretext for an invasion and always protests vociferously.

The launch – a KN-15 medium-range ballistic missile – will fuel global concerns about the hermit state’s weapons program.