The shops and cafes in front of the centuries-old Id Kah mosque in the ancient Chinese Silk Road city of Kashgar were once a gathering point for many of the city's Muslim Uighurs.
Until three months ago that is. In their place now stands a swathe of broken land the size of two football fields that is dotted with piles of refuse and designated as the future site of a vast square, a shopping mall and a motorway.
Progress? Not for some.
"Look! Look what they've done to our holy place. Every day we are losing a bit of our culture, and people wonder why there are tensions between Hans and Uighurs," flatbread hawker Nizilghur, 29, shouted over the din of a nearby bazaar.
His outburst captures the frustration of Uighurs in China's westernmost Xinjiang region after five decades of communist rule and resentment over what is seen as discrimination by Han Chinese and a widening wealth gap that sparked riots, bombings and assassinations in the 1990s.
The worst rioting left nine dead and more than 200 wounded in Yining near the border with Kazakhstan in February 1997.
China has been hoping to allay mutual distrust by pushing what it sees as the magic pill of economic development, most recently with its "Go West" masterplan to bring the fruits of economic progress to the remote hinterland.
It is also working closely with Russia and its neighbors in the former Soviet Muslim republics in central Asia, with whom it held a meeting in Beijing on Tuesday, to meet the challenge of radical Islam in the region.
Money is indeed evident in Xinjiang, from glitzy new high-rises in the capital, Urumqi, to motorways clogged with Honda Accords and Volkswagen Passats.
The question is who, and how many, actually get their hands on the wealth.
"The kind of industries set up there benefit either Han Chinese coming in from the east or Uighurs who have been educated in Chinese," said Michael Dillon, director of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies at Britain's University of Durham.
Xinjiang's highest-ranking official defended Beijing's policies.
"Economic disparity stems from your abilities. Incomes are ... not judged by ethnic groupings," Wang Lequan, Xinjiang's party boss and a Han Chinese, told visiting reporters.
But even the Shandong native, who has lived in Xinjiang for 13 years, conceded: "The central government has invested in the west for three years, but because conditions in the region are less than favorable, there are many constraints."
In a white paper released last year, Beijing said fixed asset investments in Xinjiang totalled 501.5 billion yuan (US$60.6 billion) from 1950 to 2001, while government subsidies rose to 18.38 billion yuan in 2001 from 11.9 billion in 2000.
But many Uighurs feel left out -- and not only economically.
"How many Uighurs do you see in top business or government posts? There may be a handful, but it's a tiny percentage," said Manzana, a petite Uighur teacher from Aksu.
"They talk about integration and development. They talk about raising our standard of living. How come I don't see it?"
Xinjiang separatists have been fighting for the last 150 years for an independent East Turkestan homeland, claiming a region they have inhabited for more than 1,250 years.
Formally incorporated as a province of China in 1884, Xinjiang saw a brief period of virtual independence from 1938 when it sought aid from the Soviet Union. China regained control after the Communists swept to power in 1949.
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