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Angry relatives of Chinese passengers aboard a Malaysia Airlines plane missing for more than a year clashed with police in Beijing on Friday as French officials extended the search for debris on remote Indian Ocean island beaches.

Najib’s televised statement was not universally welcomed by relatives of the 239 people on board the jet, with some expressing scepticism and fresh criticism of officials’ handling of the disaster.

Tensions came to the fore at the ongoing East Asia and Asean Foreign Ministers Meeting in Malaysia, with countries including USA, India, Japan and Australia expressing deep concern over China’s territorial claim and creation of artificial islands in the South China Sea...

The French decision to devote additional planes, helicopters, patrol boats and personnel to the area came as Malaysia also appealed to the governments of Mauritius and Madagascar east of Reunion to help widen the search area.

The photographs of the debris shared on social networking sites by the employees appear to be parts of a plane.

A man whose relative was aboard flight MH370 is surrounded by policemen near the Malaysian embassy in Beijing.

“We need the help of the population too”, he said. Malaysia don’t care about us at all.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said experts had “conclusively confirmed” it was from the missing plane, while a prosecutor in France said only that investigators could “very strongly presume” a connection.

“But in Beijing, about 20 passengers’ family members protested outside the office of Malaysia Airlines, saying they didn’t believe any of it”.

“Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that an global team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370″, Najib said in a televised address.

However, Kiow Tiong Lai stopped short of saying the items were from MH370, adding that “I can only ascertain that it’s plane debris“.

After Malaysia confirmed a wing part found on Réunion Island was from MH370, some relatives of the missing passengers are still doubtful, thanks to a distrust of the government since the beginning of the search.

The issue was a hot topic at the annual meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers this Tuesday.

However, they note that MH370 was the only missing Boeing 777, and it was “highly” probable the wing belonged to the doomed airliner.

But IOC president Thomas Bach, who pushed for and got a unanimous rubber-stamp approval of Agenda 2020 at last December’s extraordinary session in Monaco, declared then that the starting gate was closed.