The TIP “is currently recruiting, currently radicalising a number of Uighurs to conduct terrorist attacks”, he told AFP, describing the recent incidents as “milestones” that heralded more “in the coming months and coming years”.
Many other experts, however, question the influence of the TIP, a shadowy group that has released videos praising attacks in China but has yet explicitly to claim responsibility for them.
Nor, for that matter, has anyone else, said Sean Roberts, an expert on Uighurs at George Washington University in the US.
“Even if there is an organisation behind the attacks, it would likely be a homegrown organisation as opposed to an international organisation because for an international group, there would be some claim to take credit,” Roberts told AFP.
“A lot of terrorism doesn’t require much organisation at all,” he added, citing last year’s Boston Marathon bombings.
The US attack was “much more sophisticated than anything in these train stations, but yet it seems quite clear that it was just the work of two people and there was no outside organisation behind it”, Roberts said.
Scott Harold, a China expert with US think tank Rand Corporation, told AFP: “ETIM is not central in any way to the broad concerns of Al Qaeda or any of the Sunni Islamist movements worldwide.
“It’s marginal even compared to a group like (Nigeria’s) Boko Haram, which is usually described as a marginal part of Al Qaeda,” he said.
– ‘Self-fulfilling prophecy’ –
The night after the Urumqi violence, Beijing police held anti-terror drills at a key railway station in the centre of the capital.
Chinese authorities have yet to attribute a motive for the Guangzhou incident.
But Mao Shoulong, a professor at Beijing’s Renmin University, said escalating violence was sure to be met with stronger measures by the government.
“The general reaction is likely that vigilance will be tightened nationwide.” he said. “More police will be added and more training will be done.”
Ultimately, though, a harsher response to the escalation is unlikely to prove a deterrent, according to Pantucci.
“All of that is only going to exacerbate the tensions and the sense of alienation in the community,” he said.
“So it’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy in some ways. From both sides it sort of feeds off each other.”
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