Wasn't that the same region of the earthquake last year?

Given the unbelievable amount of people in the country though, I think we tend to care less because relative to the population of the country, 150 people isn't exactly a mass murder. Not that I would be ok with 150 people dying in my town, but I think as a nation (I'm from America) we tend to see it as not that big of a deal because there are 3 (?) billion others still there.

@Vamos: There's about 1.3 billion people in China as opposed to about 70 million in Iran. I don't remember the number of casualties in Iran but I believe it was (is?) less than 150. Relatively, it could be about the same. It wouldn't explain the difference in media exposure.

China isn't in the world spotlight as much as Iran is at the moment? Or maybe just the American spotlight, given that I've never been outside the US, I have no idea what the rest of the world focuses on.

We tend to focus on the U.S. :-)

Haha do you have mock news shows in wherever you live at?

Because if not I feel really sorry for the real newscasters who have to report on America.

"China isn't in the world spotlight as much as Iran is at the moment? "

I think thats the same question the original poster asked. WHY is China no in the spotlight?

Because China is the one who built and operates the spotlight:]

vamos has probably got it right. The police have imposed a vehicular curfew in the area, China Mobile has suspended it's service to the area "to help keep the peace and prevent the incident from spreading further." Internet connections in the area have also been locked down, and sites and blogs mentioning the incident have been "harmonized" (aka censored).

It seems that it's an ethnic conflict, and it's only been a day. I'm sure (at least I hope) that it will be reported more and more on the news in the coming days. The New York Times has already covered it somewhat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_riots

I think that it isn't on the news because it doesn't further anyone's political or other form of goals. Iran has oil, that district (which I will not attempt to spell) does not, and is infact of no value to anyone in higher politics.

Agreed. I think part of the issue is that in china the government already controls it's population, so to slightly increase these controls is not a massive step. For somewhere like Iran which was trying to show it was having fair and free elections, it was always going to be difficult to hide. As soon as it had the world's attention it wanted to loose it.

There probably is no focus on China because people would rather focus on one thing with their tiny little minds then worry about all the problems in the world. OH NO MICHAEL JACKSON DIED!!!! WHO CARES ABOUT 150 CHINESE?!?! THERE'S ALWAYS MORE CHINESE BUT ONLY ONE MICHAEL!!!!!!!one!!!1!1!!!!

just say flip them both. I didn't (and still do not) care one bit about Micheal Jackson the child molester and I did not personally know any of the 150 killed. In China the governemtn rules the people, and thus they can do whatever they want with them. it's almost as if they're an expendable resource.

Do you know why China is not in the spotlight? Because the US is relying on her for cash! The US needs foreign countries to buy more US securities due to the financial tsunami and it so happens that China is her biggest customer. I wouldn't offend my biggest customer...

yeah, china's totes gonna be our downfall. we're going to be destroyed economically by them, and then militarily.

Hey, do you know what Billy Mayes said when he went to heaven?

"Billy Mayes here! Have a dirty soul? Use OxyClean Satan Remover to pull out Sin stains! St. Peter, better let me in!"

Er... no. It's not a zero-sum game... China will probably surpass America economically in the future, but I seriously doubt a major military conflict will ever happen between the two countries in the near future and I especially doubt that China will "destroy" America.

There's a danger in characterizing countries as though they were like a single large person with singular motives, when they are a complex body of interests. No one person can censor this story in America in the interests of not offending China... And it's not like China can be offended by America as a country simply because it's news outlets report this story. It didn't stop Tibet's plight from being publicized.

I expect that as more information comes, the more this story will appear in the news... there's no need to invoke international conflict and conspiracy. It's as simple as censorship by the Chinese government.

Exactly, Chrispminis. This isn't in the news as much as it ought to be because there's very little information about it. There's very little information about it because China is a communist police state which heavily censors anything that puts the government in a poor light.

"Given the unbelievable amount of people in the country though, I think we tend to care less because relative to the population of the country, 150 people isn't exactly a mass murder."

vamosrammstein, saying little attention is paid when 150 people die in Xinjiang because it's a small percentage of the population is an obscene and maddeningly offensive thing to say. Deaths are only newsworthy when they constitute a big part of the population? That's ridiculous and quite frankly it's a borderline retarded argument to make.

it all depends on your point of vuew. I could view people as an expendable resource (as I have afore mentioned) or I could view them as individual beings that have a mind, emotions, ect. If I had nearly 1 billion people under my rule, I wouldn't give crap if 150 were killed by my soldiers.