Malaysia's handling of lost plane irritates China

Xinhua said the plane's manufacturer, Boeing Co., and the maker of its engines, Britain's Rolls Royce plc, as well as “intelligence superpower the United States,” with access to valuable information, “should also have done a better job.”

China's unusually vehement public reaction has “gone beyond the diplomatic,” said Carlyle Thayer, professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra.

“To put it in public isn't helping,” he said.

The rise of social media in China and the growing willingness of prosperous urban residents to assert their rights have added to pressure on Beijing to find the missing travelers.

Beijing is pressing for information “to show it is being a responsible government to the relatives of the passengers (and) to the Chinese public,” said Liu Shanying, a political scientist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.