美国有线新闻 CNN 朝鲜发射4枚导弹 金正恩旨在打击美国

From North Korea, four missiles launched on one morning. It happened yesterday. It got what's becoming a familiar response from the international community.

Officials called it provocative 1, illegal. They said it must be stopped. But that looks like the last thing North Korea is willing to do.

Monday's tests apparently 2 involved four medium range missiles that worked and a fifth that failed to get off the ground. They flew about 620 miles toward the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea. Japan's president said they landed within 200 miles of his country's coastline. And experts say what all this means is that North Korea is speeding up its weapons program, taking only a third of the time it used to take to develop and test-fire missiles.

The U.S. is an ally of Japan and South Korea. It's had a military presence in South Korea since fighting stopped in the Korean War in 1953. The White House says it's deploying 3 a missile defense 4 system to South Korea to protect against threats from the North. Those threats appear to be increasing.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: More than 20 missile launches, two nuclear tests and a satellite launch seen the world over as a long range missile test, never in North Korea's history has the testing been as fast and furious as it was last year. Monday's missile suggests the return to business as usual.

Kim Jong Un is on a rush. Experts say he will not ease up until he can truly threaten the United States.

DUYEON KIM, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: It's only a matter of time until the North is able to successfully launch a long range missile, tipped with a nuclear device, aimed at the U.S.

HANCOCKS: North Korea describes itself as a nuclear state, a term Washington says it will never accept — one policy at least the Obama and Trump 5 administrations agree on.

President Trump believes China must do more to rein 6 the country, and its leader in. But the more North Korea tests, the more it improves. The next four years are crucial to what options does U.S. President Trump have.

MIKE CHINOY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: Do you negotiate and try and get some kind of freeze, which is politically considered unacceptable in Washington? Do you step up sanctions, which so far haven't worked? Do you take military action, which leaks from Washington in recent days to suggest they are on the table? All the options are bad.

HANCOCKS: This man knows the regime well. Thae Yong Ho was the number two in North Korea's London embassy before he defected last summer. He says Kim Jong Un does want a new relationship with President Trump, just as long as it's on his terms.

THAE YONG HO, NORTH KOREAN DEFECTOR DIPLOMAT 7: He will never give up his nuclear development.

HANCOCKS: A nuclear program that's Kim Jong Un's insurance plan against what he calls hostile U.S. policy, frequent claims that if the U.S. were less threatening, North Korea would have no need for its program.