JAKARTA: Indonesian Pres­ident Prabowo Subianto on Saturday cancelled a planned trip to China as days of protests spread further outside the capital Jakarta, with several regional parliament buildings set ablaze.

Prabowo had been due to attend a “Victory Day” parade in China on September 3 to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two following Japan’s formal surrender.

Earlier on Saturday, protesters caused fires at regional parliament buildings in three provinces — West Nusa Tenggara, Pekalongan city in Central Java and Cirebon city in West Java, local media reported.

Detik.com said protesters had looted parliamentary office equipment in Cirebon and police fired te­­argas to disperse protesters in Pek­al­­ongan and West Nusa Tenggara.

TikTok live feature temporarily suspended

Three people were killed on Friday in an arson attack on a parliament building in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province, Indonesia’s disaster management agency said.

The protests, the first major test for Prabowo’s nearly year-old government, began in Jakarta this week over lawmakers’ pay and worsened after a police vehicle hit and killed a motorcycle rider.

“The president wants to continue monitoring (the situation in Ind­onesia) directly...and seek the best sol­­utions,” presidential spoke­spe­rson Prasetyo Hadi said in a video statement on Saturday.

“Therefore, the president apologises to the Chinese government that he could not attend the invitation.” Another consideration in cancelling the trip was a United Nations General Assembly session in Sep­tember, Prasetyo said.

TikTok suspended

In the light of the protest, short-video app TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, said on Saturday it had suspended its live feature in Indonesia for a few days.

Social media platform said it suspended its live feature in Indonesia for “a few days” because of violent protests after the death of a man hit by a police vehicle.

“Due to escalating violence during protests in Indonesia, we have voluntarily introduced additional safeguards to keep TikTok a safe and civil space,” a TikTok spokesperson said.

“Out of an abundance of caution, TikTok LIVE is temporarily suspended for a few days in Indonesia.” Southeast Asia’s biggest economy was rocked by protests in major cities on Friday, including capital Jakarta and the eastern city of Ma­­kassar where a blaze at a local council building killed three people.

Protests continued in Surabaya city on main island Java, as well as on the islands of Bali and Lombok. The video-sharing app said it would continue to monitor the situation closely. Indonesia has one of the world’s biggest audiences on TikTok, with more than 100 million users. In some videos of the protests posted on the service on Saturday, users complained they could not use the live feature.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2025