Ten breakthroughs of China's military diplomacy in 2014

In 2014, the Chinese military played a more active role in assuming the responsibilities of a major country, deepened its relations with the militaries of many countries, aired its voices more loudly, and carried out military drills in a more practical way. If we have to summarize China's military diplomacy in 2014 with one sentence, the best choice may be "military shows more major-country style".

NO.1 Unprecedented efforts in searching for missing Malaysia Airlines passenger planeEvent playback: The Malaysia Airlines MH370 lost contact with ground control soon after it took off in Kuala Lumpur on March 8 this year. The Chinese military immediately coordinated with the militaries of relevant countries and assigned troops to search for the missing plane.

Reason for listing: The Chinese military assigned 2,273 people and mobilized nine naval vessels, six ship-borne helicopters and five Air Force planes from March 8 to May 1 to consistently search for the missing plane at the Gulf of Thailand, southwest of Sumatra, the South Indian Ocean and other sea areas. During that period, the Chinese military searched for a total mileage of 50,000 nautical miles, equivalent to travelling around the earth more than twice, searched about one million sq km of sea areas, scanned 12,676-sq-km underwater areas with sonar, and covered tens of millions of sq km with satellite surveillance. The No.872 naval vessel carried out a 157-day-long normal search in the South Indian Ocean from April 27 to September 20, completing 63,574-km mileage and multi-beam topography measurement of 42,000 sq km. This is an unprecedentedly extensive and massive search undertaken by the Chinese military.