Chinese official media on Thursday downplayed a series of deadly blasts that struck near a provincial headquarters of the ruling Communist Party, warning against overstating their impact.
Authorities have not indicated a possible motive for Wednesday’s incident, which follows a fiery attack in Tiananmen Square last week that Beijing says was an act of terror carried out by members of the Uygur minority from northwest Xinjiang.
The Global Times newspaper, which is close to the ruling Communist Party, emphasised in an editorial that investigators need time to get to the bottom of the bombings in Taiyuan, capital of the northern province of Shanxi.
“No matter what the conclusion is, there is no need to exaggerate the influence of the explosions,” it said. “We should avoid creating illusions that the bomb-planters carried out an earth-shattering event.”
The paper ran a front-page story on the explosions that killed at least one person and wounded eight others near the party provincial commission in Taiyuan. The state-run China Daily devoted only a small corner on the bottom of its third page to the incident.
Police discovered ball bearings and electric circuit boards at the scene of the explosions, suggesting home-made devices intended to cause maximum damage.
According to the Shanghai-based China Business News, police are searching for a suspect who fled the scene of the bombings in a black Volkswagen Santana.