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By   GILLIAN WONG An exhibitor displays a 3D face-capture system at the 17th China Beijing International High-Tech Expo (CHITEC) in May.   Zuma Press On several fronts, 2014 was a particularly eventful year for China’s technology sector. While a handful of domestic players grabbed headlines with blockbuster share offerings, major acquisitions or soaring valuations, some multinational firms encountered major obstacles in their efforts to expand in the vast but increasingly challenging market. Chief among 2014’s Chinese tech highlights was e-commerce giant Alibaba’s  record initial public offering  in New York that raised $25 billion and catapulted it onto the international stage. Also raising eyebrows was Lenovo, the No. 1 personal computer maker, with its sizable acquisitions: first a  server business from IBM  for $2.3 billion, then  Motorola Mobility from Google for $2.91 billion . It was also a year that saw Xiaomi, a four-year-old sm...