美国国家公共电台 NPR North Korea Test-Fires First Missile Under Trump's Presidency（在线收听）

LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

North Korea may be testing the new U.S. administration. It fired its first ballistic missile of the year, its first under the Trump administration. To talk more about this, we've called NPR's Elise Hu in Seoul, and she joins us on the line.

Good morning.

ELISE HU, BYLINE: Good morning.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So Elise, what do we know about this test missile?

HU: It was fired just before 8 o'clock in the morning local time Sunday, from North Korea into the Sea of Japan. That's the body of water between Korea and Japan. It flew about 300 miles before crash-landing into the ocean, and it didn't create any damage. And I should note this happened during dinnertime on the American east coast. That's important because President Trump was with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at that moment. And the two of them had a hastily arranged press conference where Abe condemned the attack and Trump backed him up with one brief comment.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: President Trump speaking there with the Japanese prime minister.

What can you tell us about the timing? It seems rather interesting that this took place right when the Japanese prime minister is in the United States.

HU: Exactly. That's a good point. And North Korea hasn't stated its motives explicitly. But observers are pointing to a couple of things - one, that the Kim Jong-un regime has committed itself to perfecting missile technology, so you have to test in order to do that; the other possibility is that North Korea wanted to remind everyone that it's still there. You know, we've seen a lot of diplomacy in this region lately with the defense secretary, James Mattis, coming out here last week. We've seen President Trump affirm the One-China policy just over this last week. The other possibility is that this has little to do with global affairs and more to do with just shoring up domestic allegiance to the regime within North Korea.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Right. So it's always very difficult to know what is going on in North Korea. But how will the Trump administration respond to North Korea, do you think, longer term?

HU: That's a huge question mark, Lulu. The Trump White House is believed to be doing a top-to-bottom review of North Korea policy. But even after they do that, the options here are limited. So this is a vexing question. President Barack Obama actually is said to have told Trump during the transition that North Korea should be the biggest foreign policy priority for the new administration.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Elise Hu is our Seoul correspondent.

Elise, thanks so much.

HU: You bet.