China's Role in Search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Brings Its Own Headaches
PEARCE AIR BASE, PERTH—With 153 Chinese that were on board Malaysia Airlines[size=1.3]3786.KU -2.13% Flight 370 now assumed lost, the role of China in what is set to shift to a salvage effort is bound to remain intense. However, its participation in the multinational mission isn't without its complications. At an Australian air force base outside the western city of Perth, two Chinese air force IL-76 long-range transport planes and their crews are unusual guests. The manner of their arrival here Saturday, on a mission to help look for the missing flight, hinted at how seldom China's airmen venture this far south. They initially landed in the wrong place, at Perth Airport, rather than Pearce Air Force Base, their actual destination 26 miles, or 42 kilometers, to the north. That incident aside, the concern among some countries in the Asian-Pacific region is that these occasional expeditions south will become less rare, and much more assured, as China builds up its blue-water capabilities and its military swagger.
he imperative of finding traces of the airliner—confirmed to have been lost in the southern Indian Ocean yesterday by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak —had trumped the reservations of governments normally happier to see China's armed forces operating within their own sphere of influence. Of the 239 people on board Flight 370, the majority were Chinese. The Chinese crews thus joined the search in the southern Indian Ocean Monday, alongside others from allied nations—Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the U.S.—more accustomed to pooling their resources. Within hours of taking off, one Chinese crew reported seeing objects floating in the search area, though they were unable to confirm whether these related to the lost jet. Yet even amid the goodwill of the multinational search mission, there has been pushback against Chinese participation—and suspicion regarding Beijing's motives. A senior Indian defense official told The Wall Street Journal that a Chinese request for ships to search near the Andaman island chain—which is Indian territory—was declined last week over concerns that the operation was a pretext for the gathering of intelligence about key defense installations. "They can play on emotions and try and get into the area. We have all modern capabilities to look for the plane ourselves if it had crashed in Indian waters," the official said. There was "nothing subtle about this," agreed Brahma Chellaney of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. China was using the hunt for the missing airliner "for military advantage," he said, in "the latest example of how [it] is becoming assertive." The Chinese Foreign Ministry didn't respond to a faxed request for comment on the allegations. China's highly visible contributions to the search effort also derive from the opportunity "to win prestige" in an operation with a global—and, more important, a domestic—audience, according to Andrew Davies, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. As well as aircraft, China has sent several naval ships to the southern search zone, and has tasked 21 satellites to scour the search corridor for signs of the missing plane. "Nothing of this size has ever been conducted by China, either by the navy or coast guard," said Gary Li, senior analyst at IHS Maritime. "It's fairly impressive how quickly they have mobilized," he added. "We're used to the Chinese being relatively risk averse." Before this, the biggest operations undertaken regularly by the Chinese navy were joint antipiracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden, which it has conducted for several years. But these have usually involved just two warships and one supply vessel. In January, the navy also sent three ships through the South China Sea and south of Indonesia into the Indian Ocean, in a move that prompted hand-wringing among China's neighbors, or at least those who worry about the implications of China's rise to superpower status. The Flight 370 search has dwarfed those earlier operations. Even so, by dispatching the two Il-76 aircraft—which are essentially cargo planes with no specialist capability when it comes to maritime search—Beijing has also highlighted its lack of reach in certain areas. "A dedicated, long-range maritime patrol aircraft with a high-performance radar is certainly one thing they seem to be lacking," Mr. Davies commented. China has spent many years building up "area-denial" capabilities, he said, referring in particular to precision missiles designed to prevent foreign ships and aircraft from entering Chinese waters in the event of conflict. By comparison, its long-range capabilities were relatively nascent, he added. Mr. Li also pointed out that China had only sent one supply ship to support the search mission, meaning that the Chinese ships may soon struggle to operate so far from home. The actual capabilities fielded may be less important, however, than the message that Beijing has sent to the world and to its own people by its robust response to the aircraft's disappearance, a mobilization that stands in contrast to its meager response, at least initially, after Typhoon Haiyan devastated parts of the Philippines last year. According to Rory Medcalf, director of the international-security program at Australia's Lowy Institute for International Policy, the unprecedented Chinese mission serves as a "reminder that China is increasingly willing to deploy forces to distant and unfamiliar places to help its citizens, or at least to be seen to help them."
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Post time 25-3-2014 11:54 PM
.. saya tahu mereka dah cuba sehabis baik.. bahkan dari thread2 yg lain beria2 saya menyokong usaha SAR team n gov tatkala ada yang mengutuk n memperkecilkan usaha mereka 
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