A multinational effort to track down a missing Malaysian airliner on the edge of the South China Sea is turning into a rare example of maritime collaboration between countries embroiled in territorial disputes in the region.

一场在南中国海（中国称南海）边缘搜索失联马来西亚航班的多国行动，正转变成在该地区存有领土争端的国家之间展开海上合作的少有事例。

At least 45 ships and 22 aircraft, including Southeast Asian military and law-enforcement forces as well as Chinese and U.S. warships, were involved on Sunday, most of them converging on the last known location of Malaysia Airlines 3786.KU 0.00% flight 370-a swathe of open sea stretching hundreds of miles between Malaysia and Vietnam.

包括东南亚国家的军队和执法部队以及中国和美国军舰在内，周日至少有45艘船只和22架飞机参与搜索，大多集中在马来西亚航空公司(Malaysia Airlines) 370航班已知的最后位置，这是马来西亚和越南之间延伸数百英里的狭长开阔海面。

The target search area lies just outside the vast portion of the South China Sea that China sees as its territory and which overlaps with waters claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan.

目标搜索区域刚好位于中国宣称拥有主权的南中国海大片区域之外，越南、马来西亚、菲律宾、文莱和台湾地区也声称拥有其中水域的主权。

Chinese coast guard and naval ships have been involved in frequent confrontations with vessels from the U.S., Vietnam and the Philippines in the last few years, as Beijing has taken a more assertive stance on territorial disputes in the region, analysts and diplomats say.

分析人士和外交人员说，过去几年中，随着北京方面在该地区领土争端问题上采取更激进的立场，中国海警和海军舰艇经常与美国、越南和菲律宾的船只发生对抗。

The current joint effort has yet to bear fruit, even as pressure mounts on Malaysian authorities-who are leading the search-to uncover the fate of the Boeing BA -0.25% 777-200 jet that was carrying 239 people when it vanished off radar screens early Saturday en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

目前的联合行动尚未有任何成果，与此同时，主导搜索行动的马来西亚当局找到这架波音777-200飞机的压力越来越大。这架飞机上载有239人，周六早间在从吉隆坡飞往北京途中失联。

Nonetheless, 'it's also a good example of regional cooperation on a multinational rescue operation,' said Zhu Feng, an expert on international security issues at Peking University, who is also a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. 'This could be a good model for the future.'

北京大学国际安全问题专家、华盛顿的布鲁金斯研究所(Brookings Institution)访问学者朱峰说，尽管如此，这仍是在多国救援行动中展开地区合作的优秀事例。他 说，这可能成为未来的一个良好范例。

So far the only clues to the whereabouts of flight 370 were two oil slicks spotted some 140 kilometers, or 87 miles, from Vietnam's coast and what were thought to be aircraft fragments-a composite inner door and a piece of the tail-seen floating about 50 miles south-southwest of Vietnam's Tho Chu island, officials in Hanoi said.

到目前为止，有关370航班下落的线索只有距离越南海岸约140公里（约87英里）的两条油迹带，以及据信是飞机碎片的漂浮物。越南官员称，在越南Tho Chu岛南至西南方向约50英里（约80公里）处看到漂浮物，看起来像是飞机内舱门和机尾的一部分。

It wasn't immediately clear if the oil slicks and the fragments were indeed from the missing jet, though Vietnamese rescuers are investigating those sightings.

目前还不能立即确定油迹带和漂浮物是否来自失联飞机，不过越南搜救人员正在进行调查。

Officials also haven't commented on whether rescuers have detected any signal from the missing aircraft's emergency locator transmitter-a distress beacon that is automatically activated in the event of a crash. The absence of such a signal would complicate an already-difficult search effort spread over a vast patch of open sea, aviation analysts say.

官员们也没有透露搜救人员是否探测到失联飞机紧急定位发射器发出的任何信号――发射器在飞机坠落时会自动发射信号。航空分析师表示，在大片海域进行搜救本来就非常困难，而缺乏这类信号将令搜救工作更加复杂。

The challenge means that the search-and-rescue forces now scouring the area, one of the largest gatherings of maritime forces in the region in recent years, could still expand, analysts say.

分析师们称，这意味着在相关海域的搜救力量仍可能扩大；目前集结在该地区的海上力量已经是近几年来最大规模之一。

The Malaysian deployment is the largest onsite, comprising 27 ships (14 navy and 13 coast guard vessels), as well as 16 aircraft (11 air force and five coast guard). Vietnam meanwhile has sent five ships and three aircraft, according to officials in Hanoi.

在相关海域，马来西亚的搜救力量最大，共出动了27艘船只（14艘海军军舰和13艘海岸警卫队船只）以及16架飞机（11架空军飞机和五架海岸警卫队飞机）。据越南官员称，越南派出了五艘救援船和三架飞机。

Singapore deployed two warships and a submarine support and rescue vessel, as well as two C-130 military airlifters, while three Indonesian surface vessels were onsite. Thailand has contributed a ship and an aircraft so far.

新加坡派出了两艘军舰、一艘潜艇救援船以及两架C-130军用运输机，印度尼西亚派出了三艘水面舰艇。泰国出动了一艘救援船和一架飞机。

Help from further afield included at least five Chinese vessels-two warships, a coast-guard craft and two search and rescue vessels-as well as a U.S. guided missile destroyer and an American maritime patrol aircraft.

此外相关海域还包括至少五艘中国船只（两艘军舰、一艘海警船和两艘搜救船），美国有一艘导弹驱逐舰和一架海上巡逻机。

Security analysts, however, were reluctant to read too much into the broader diplomatic impact of the multilateral operation.

不过安全专家不愿对此次多国救援行动的外交影响作过多解读。

'There's an overwhelming humanitarian need involved in finding this jet, and militaries regularly train to handle such missions collaboratively,' said Carl Thayer, a political scientist and emeritus professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

政治学者、澳大利亚国防军事学院(Australian Defence Force Academy)名誉教授卡尔•泰勒(Carl Thayer)称，在搜救失联飞机方面，人道主义压倒一切；军队需要经常训练以应对这类协同行动。

Furthermore, 'the Chinese government needs to be seen doing something, given the large number of Chinese citizens onboard the plane, and they are also sensitive to criticism that they were slow off the mark in responding to the typhoon' that hit the Philippines last year, Mr. Thayer said. 'At the end of this mission, the strategic situation would simply go back to where it was before.'

此外泰勒表示，中国政府需要采取一些行动，因为机上大量乘客是中国人，而且去年菲律宾遭受台风袭击时外界对中国反应迟缓的批评之声也令中国政府非常敏感。他认为，在这次任务完成后，战略形势将回到从前的状况。

Flight 370 carried passengers from more than a dozen nationalities, with just over half of them Chinese.

370航班上的乘客来自十多个国家，一半以上是中国乘客。

Aviation analysts say the lengthy search for flight 370 evokes memories of the 2009 crash of Air France AF.FR +4.44% flight 447 off the coast of Brazil. In that incident, aerial searchers first spotted pieces of the Airbus A330 jet a day after it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, but responders were only able to start recovering debris and remains days later.

航空分析师称，搜索370航班的时间长度令人回忆起2009年法国航空(Air France ) 447航班坠落巴西海岸的情形。当时空中搜救人员在飞机坠入大西洋后的第二天首次发现了这架空中客车A330飞机的碎片，但随后数天才能够开始打捞飞机残留碎片和遇难者遗体。

The aircraft's main wreck, which had settled under 13,000 feet of water, was discovered nearly two years later, and investigators took another month to retrieve its black boxes.

这架失事客机的主体沉没在13,000英尺（约3,962米）的海底，在将近两年之后才被发现，而调查人员又过了一个月才取回了黑匣子。