Papers in Hong Kong and Taiwan are divided over whether North Korea may now be driven towards reforms or whether the crisis on the Korean Peninsula will be aggravated.

Japanese and South Korean dailies denounce the launch as an act of folly and urge a united response to Pyongyang's "provocations".

Call for restraint

"Overreaction may provoke" North Korea and "corner it into further isolation", Ruan Zongze, the vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies, told Beijing's state-run China Daily in a front-page interview. He added that China was opposed to the US, Japan and South Korea deploying anti-ballistic missiles because this "will only militarise and spark conflict in the region".