But in the Muslim-majority province of Xinjiang the brittle façade of unity cracked for all the world to see. Two days after 156 people were killed in a vicious outbreak of ethnic mob violence, the streets of the ancient Silk Road city of Urumqi hung thick with tear gas and poisonous rumours as two rival communities called openly for each other's blood.
On one side the Muslim Uighurs, the historic Turkic-origin people of China's far West, who claim that for the last 60 years they have suffered discrimination and oppression under by Beijing's heavy-handed rule.
On the other, the majority Han Chinese population who have migrated to Xinjiang as part of Beijing's policy of 'developing the West' and yesterday were openly despising their Uighur fellow-citizens as 'murderers', 'terrorists' and 'spongers'.
"Kill the Uighurs! Kill all Uighurs!" chanted a crowd of more than ten thousand Han that surged back and forth through the streets armed with any weapons that came to hand: there were claw-hammers and wrenches; axes and scaffolding poles; snooker cues and baseball bats.
Women and young boys were among the throng demanding vengeance for the deaths and injuries they say were inflicted on hundreds of Han people on Sunday night.
"We can't live like this any more, we lock our doors at night and live in fear now," said a thickset Han woman holding a length of steel pipe, "the Uighurs will learn now that the Han people can also join forces. They must suffer too."
As she spoke, the streets were shaken by the explosion of tear gas grenades as police tried to prevent the crowd from storming a nearby Mosque, sending them running in the opposite direction, clanking like a medieval army as they dragged their homespun weapons after them.
"Didn't you hear, these Uighurs they chopped the heads off a hundred Han and left their bodies in the streets," volunteered a man wielding a table leg, "They killed even the small children, they are barbarians and the government must act to crush them now." Police and senior officials moved in to try and calm the crowd who demanded harsh punishment for Uighur rioters. The local Party-secretary, Li Zhi, risked his dignity by standing on the roof of a police car with a megaphone beseeching the crowd to go home.
"Punish the Uighurs! Punish the Uighurs!," the crowd chanted. "We will punish them harshly, now please go home" replied Mr Li, joining his hands in the Chinese symbol of a humble request. By early evening most had obeyed.
Although the authorities have declined to breakdown the dead on ethnic lines, reports of casualty lists from some hospitals and a gathering amount of eyewitness testimony suggest that many of the victims of Sunday's violence were indeed Han.
Yao Chengqing, a 42-year-old blanket shop owner from a mixed area of Urumqi was still swathed in bandages when he spoke to The Daily Telegraph, his shirt collar caked in now-brown blood that had spilt from a gash to the head.
"I went to pick up my wife from work on Sunday night at about 10.30pm and we were attacked by ten Uighurs," he said. "We never even spoke a word to them; they just attacked, beating us and screaming 'We hate the Han, we want to kill the Han'."
Mr Yao, who moved to Urumqi from the south western city of Chongqing ten years ago, added: "My wife is lying in hospital with 40 stitches and is blinded in one eye. She is too frightened to live here any more. I never thought I would see this day." However on the other side of this divided city, another story was being told that sought to explain the deep well of Uighur anger and resentment that appears to have found such brutal expression last Sunday night.
It began almost two weeks ago with reports that a Han Chinese mob had beaten a group of Uighur toy factory workers in the southern province of Guangdong and, crucially, had been allowed to get away with it.
In the Sai Ma Chang (Racetrack) District this was taken as another example of institutionalised Han favouritism against the Uighurs and soon the internet rumour mill was turning fact into fiction, feeding latent anger which is never far from the surface in Xinjiang.
"Didn't you hear? There were 4,000 Han people who chopped the heads off 600 Uighurs and then threw their body parts in the dustbin," said Gu Li, a 19-year-old student. "I heard there were videos on the internet. It's true." It is not, but the damage has already been done and now it seems that it will take long time for the wounds of Sunday's communal violence to heal.
On Monday night, Chinese police entered the Sai Ma Chang shanty and rounded up 100 suspects, bursting through doors and pulling men and boys from their beds, according to the Uighur women who took to the streets to protest yesterday.
They emerged from the dirty backstreets, wailing and beating their breasts, many clutching grubby-faced children dressed in the cheap clothes and holding up the identity cards of their arrested husbands, fathers and brothers.
Visibly poorer than the Han demonstrators roaming the other side of the city, the women in their headscarves swore vengeance on the ranks of police that quickly confronted them, throwing their shoes (a gross insult in Islam) and chanting "Release our men! Release our men!"
"They took my brother and he is only 15 years old," screamed Guli Nazar, 16, over the police sirens. "He did nothing and they still took him. We don't know what they are doing to our men, but we are afraid we will never see them again."
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