China is a fascist state with total control of the media and its people. Malaysia is dysfunctional. There’s something embarrassing or sinister to the China government about this “missing” plane. Beijing knows what happened.
Just my $0.02.
My first thought the hour I heard about the missing flight was Uighur Muslims.
Both China AND Malaysia have dog in the fight to quash that prospect, imho, as it would be most embarrassing for the Chinese leadership and, consequently, the Malay government as well (which also doesn’t want headlines reading “Malay Muslim pilot kills 238 passengers & crew”)...