By Kim Tae-wan

On Friday, Chinese President Hu Jintao is scheduled to hold a summit meeting with Korean President Lee Myung-bak, while he is visiting Shanghai to attend the opening ceremony of the 2010 World Expo. I hope these talks between the top leaders of Korea and China will be productive, and include a resolution on the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan.

On the night of March 26, the battleship Cheonan sunk due to a mysterious explosion, splitting into two parts. The sunken stern was raised on April 17, and the bow on April 23. While 58 sailors were saved within several hours of the explosion from the forward part of the ship, 40 dead bodies were found in the wreck with the other six crew members still missing.

Initially, Seoul had been very careful in suggesting any possible involvement of North Korea in the sinking and invited foreign experts to conduct a fair and objective investigation. President Lee mentioned several times that global eyes are watching the incident and the Korean government's handling of the investigation.

However, after the first-stage of the probe concluded that the warship was sunk by a powerful external explosive impact, the military authorities in Seoul are not hesitating to mention the likelihood of Pyongyang's direct involvement.

Many Koreans now speculate that the warship was sunk by a stealth attack from North Korea. If this is true, the number of victims resulting from a military attack by Pyongyang is the largest since the Korean War. And this explains why voices are being raised for military retaliation.

However, I hope that even the idea of limited military action ends up as just political rhetoric. Because everybody knows any military response will escalate to a possibly far worse situation that nobody wants. Military retaliation must be the last reluctant choice. Moreover, an in-depth international investigation, in which the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and Sweden are participating, is still going on. It needs more time to make a final conclusion. Just as President Lee mentioned several times, all kinds of possibilities exist now. So there should be no predetermination.

Now, it is China's turn to have a say on the corvette's sinking. China has kept quiet on the incident for nearly a month, trying to maintain a political balance between Seoul and Pyongyang.

In Seoul, Chinese Ambassador Zhang Xinsen said that all countries concerned want peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula. That does not sound like a very committed reaction to this critical issue.

China has been saying it desires and tries to be a responsible entity in the global community as well as in Northeast Asia. Beijing has been taking the lead in the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear issue, and the other five states acknowledge Beijing's leading role in the talks.

Currently, the warship sinking is the most important incident as it covers all the issues on the Korean Peninsula, affecting Pyongyang's return to the nuclear talks, and Seoul's local elections on June 2. Even the perennially bickering political parties in South Korea look to cooperate with the government's efforts for the probe and deciding on reasonable responses to its outcome.

If Beijing wants to be a trustworthy role model as, at least, a regional power, it has to either participate in the international probe or clearly declare that it will fully accept the conclusion of the international probe on the warship sinking, including any further possible international sanctions on Pyongyang.

The naval disaster has added one more reason Presidents Lee and Hu should exchange more than diplomatic niceties and produce genuinely meaningful results in a regional as well as a bilateral context.

The writer is a professor of political science at Dong-eui University. He can be reached at taewandavidkim@deu.ac.kr.