In the past, this would have been a process that they tried to do. One of the Uighur officials that many Uighurs look up to, Seypidin Azizi, had quite a lot of power. He was the party secretary for the entire region. There have also been Mongol leaders in the past who have had significant power in the politburo.
At present, though, there are no Uighurs who are in those sort of levers of power and who have that kind of access. The most powerful Uighur today, I would say, is the governor of the region, but most Uighurs view him as someone who is simply doing the bidding of the party secretary, who has the real power in the province.
We've seen in the last two years many Uighurs of influence, many of whom are party members, being removed from those positions. We've seen purges of those leaders. The president of Xinjiang University, the largest university, was taken away and given a death sentence with a two-year reprieve. The former president of the medical university was also taken and given the same sentence.
What we're seeing is these cultural influencers—people in positions of power among the population more generally, the Uighur population—being taken out. Even though they are trying to work within the state system, now they're being removed.