these planes, dropping these sonar buoys. not once has it been mentioned to me by anybody out on the street who i talked to, any reporters who i ve spoken to, there s never been a question, are we spending too much money, spending too much time? it seems like at least for now, anecdotally on the ground here, australians are behind this, happy to see their country taking the lead. i think australia is being seen, perceived as really handling this very well by many people. now, let s talk again in two months, six months. if the search continues, will that be sustainable? that s the big question. pauline choiu, joe johns, will ripley, given your workloads, i doubly appreciate you taking this much time with us. thank you, guys.
the transport minister retweeting a humorous cartoon lampooning cnn. i asked one of the lawyers in town what is all this pushback about from the government. and he said it s all about public consumption, making people understand here in malaysia that this government is not intimidated. they may not do everything right but can still give as good as they get, candy. pauline, i want to bring you in from hong kong. it occurs to me at the very beginning we heard a lot from the relatives that obviously were waiting at the airport for this malaysian flight to come in to china which was its destination. we haven t heard much since. what s happened there? i think you re not hearing as much public anger and criticism in front of the tv cameras because, for a couple of reasons. a, it s the 37th day. the families are just exhausted emotionally and they re frustrated. and the other issue is the
they may not do everything right, but can still give as good as they can get, candy. pauline, i want to bring you in from hong kong. cause it occurs to me, at the very beginning, we heard a lot from the relatives that obviously were waiting at the airport for this malaysian flight to come in to china, which was its destination. and we haven t heard much since. what s happened there? reporter: well, i think you re not hearing as much public anger and criticism in front of the tv cameras because, for a couple of reasons. a, it s the 37th day. the families are just exhausted emotionally and they re frustrated. and the other issue is the chinese government has put a little bit of pressure on the families behind closed doors to step back a little bit and to dial back some of that criticism. and we know this because i was in beijing for 33 days and i saw some of the closed door
page story every single day, but from time to time, it will pop up, sort of depends on the exclusive that one newspaper or another might get. we went over to a radio station here in town just to try to take the pulse, temperature of kuala lumpur. a lot of people on the radio talking about it, very concerned about the malaysia public image. they re concerned about relations with china, which is very important to them, obviously, for trade reasons. and i think they re also concerned about tourism, concerned about people coming to this country considering the fact they ve had this problem with this plane. so people in malaysia would like to see this thing, number one, over and they want the government to give a clear and consistent message every time they speak because they think it reflects poorly on the country if they don t. pauline, joe mentions the relationship between malaysia and china. what is the nature of it since
talking about it, very concerned about the malaysia public image. they re concerned about relations with china, which is very important to them obviously, for trade reasons. and i think they re also concerned about tourism, concerned about people coming to this country, considering the fact that they ve had this problem with this plane. so people in malaysia would like to see this thing, number one, over and they want the government to give a clear and consistent message every time they speak because they think it reflects poorly on the country if they don t. yeah. and pauline, joe mentions the relationship between malaysia and china. what is the nature of it since it seems china is quite willing to let the chinese families criticize the malaysian government. but we haven t seen a lot of it directly government to government. reporter: generally, the relationship between china and