THERESA May will begin a three-day visit to Japan today despite North Korea launching a ballistic missile over the country as international tensions mount.

The Prime Minister is due to meet her Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in what she hoped would be preliminary talks over closer trading rel ations between the UK and Japan post Brexit. However, amid rising security concerns, future trading relations with the UK will not be Abe’s main priority.

May said yesterday afternoon that there had been no suggestion of cancelling or amending her trip to the Far East.

“No, I’m absolutely clear that trip to Japan will go ahead,” she said. “It gives me the opportunity to sit down with Prime Minister Abe and discuss the action North Korea has taken.

“These are illegal tests, we strongly condemn them and we will be working with Japan and other international partners to ensure pressure is put on North Korea.”

May added: “This action by North Korea is reckless provocation, these are illegal tests and we strongly condemn them.”

The crisis comes after heightening tensions in recent weeks between North Korea and the US and its allies. Yesterday’s missile flew over Hokkaido, the most northern of Japan’s main islands, at around 6am local time and crashed into the northern Pacific Ocean after breaking into three parts.

Residents found out about the emergency when the Japanese Government warned: “A missile was fired from North Korea. Please evacuate to a sturdy building or basement.”

South Korea later dropped test bombs at a firing range near the border with the North and threatened to “exterminate” North Korea’s leadership if its citizens are threatened.

Earlier this month American President Donald Trump said Pyongyang would face “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if made threats against the US. That led North Korea to announce it was looking at its plans to hit targets around the US Pacific territory of Guam.

Abe yesterday called the launch an “unprecedented and grave threat” to Japan’s security, and arranged in a phone call with Trump for an emergency meeting of the UN security council later yesterday which was due to discuss further sanctions against North Korea.

The missile was the third fired by North Korea to have passed over Japanese territory. The first was in 1998 and the second in 2009, although Pyongyang claims they were satellites.

Yesterday China warned the US and South Korea not to provoke North Korea and called for restraint from all sides.

Trump has traded fierce rhetoric with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un for months, as the pace of the regime’s missile testing has increased. He declared earlier this month that “military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded”.

China’s foreign ministry said it opposed North Korea going against UN resolutions to launch missiles, but added sanctions could not solve the issue. It called for the United States and North Korea to open talks.

Trump has tried to pressure China, Pyongyang’s sole major ally, into doing more to restrain the regime and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has also urged China “to ratchet up the pressure”.

May is set for disappointment on her visit after Japanese officials signalled they would not rush into free trade talks with Britain. The Tory leader wants a UK-Japan version of the deal Tokyo agreed in principle with the EU last month, but Japanese officials say their priority is completing the deal with Brussels, while negotiations with the UK will be difficult until there is clarity about its future relationship with the EU.