Salam Mr. Rippa,
As an Uighur I want to thank you for studying Uighur anthropology. I grow up in Urumqi, educated in China, and a witness of July 5 massacre in 2009. It swept out all of the dreams about the CCP or Han Chinese may willing to live with Uighur peacefully. It was not only because the brutality of government how they handled the incident, but how they were/are/will false, shameless, and inhuman.
Whey you were asked what the barrier of the Chinese government to understand giving local people some respect is, you said you didn't know. The answer I got after grown up there is they do not think it is necessary. Chinese have some very different ideology than Westerners. After failed socialism and giving up all their religious beliefs, the Chinese society is under moral crises. This crises is growing up inside of China, and is shaping anti-western ideology which is the root of problems the world is facing . Stefan Halper depicted it in The Beijing Consensus.
May be how to find faith in Chinese people is the most troublesome of solving Uighur's problem, and World's in future.
Here is an article about lie in Chinese life: www.secretchina.com/news/14/01/22/527879.html
Thank you again for helping us to find out Uighur history which is fabricated by Chinese government and Han scholars.