The chorus of smiling Muslims and Han Chinese wore matching yellow polo shirts and appeared on television singing: “We are all part of the same family.” The TV spot Wednesday was the latest effort in a relentless propaganda campaign by the Chinese government to end the worst ethnic rioting in the far western Xinjiang region in decades.

But the message was falling flat on the streets of the dusty jade-trading oasis city of Hotan, where many Muslims are still seething with resentment over the Han, the dominant ethnic group in China. The residents spoke about the long-standing tensions in hushed voices in the Silk Road town’s bustling bazaar, where donkeys pulled carts piled high with melons, and women in colorful head scarves sold wheels of flat bread that looked like pizza crust.

One Muslim shopkeeper picked up a hatchet, raised it over his head and lowered it with one quick stroke before saying, “That’s the best way to deal with the Han Chinese.” The store owner, who only identified himself as Abdul, scoffed at the TV shows featuring members of his own Turkic minority ethnic group, the Uighurs, gushing about how harmonious and happy most of the people are in the sprawling oil-rich Xinjiang region, three times the size of Texas.

“I don’t believe these people,” the businessman said with a whisper, as he scouted the street for plainclothes police. “They get paid to say these things. Ninety percent of the Uighurs don’t believe that stuff.” The media campaign began after July 5 when ethnic rioting killed at least 192 people in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi. The violence started when police broke up a Uighur demonstration in the city’s main square, and the protesters scattered throughout the city, smashing windows, torching cars and beating Han Chinese. Two days later, groups of Han Chinese men went on a rampage against the Uighurs.

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