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Published On: Thu, 04 Sep 2025

13:29:07 PKT

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian students will stage protests at the parliament building in the capital Jakarta on Thursday, a student group said, as a proposed meeting with the government on massive demonstrations that have left 10 people dead was yet to materialise.

Led by students, workers and rights groups, last week’s protests over police violence and state spending priorities spread across the world’s third-largest democracy after a police vehicle hit and killed a motorcycle taxi driver.

The demonstrations have at times turned violent. Rights groups said 10 people have died and over 1,000 people were injured in incidents of looting and rioting. Rights groups have condemned the use of force by security forces.

The coalition of student bodies, known locally as BEM SI, said ahead of Thursday’s protest that “the people’s anxiety isn’t due to protests on the street, but it’s due to corruption and the politicisation of the law.”

Ten student unions met with parliamentarians on Wednesday. They called for an independent investigation into police violence, while drawing a contrast between generous benefits for lawmakers and the economic hardship faced by most Indonesians.

The deputy house speaker offered them a chance to meet with the government on Thursday but BEM SI leader Muzammil Ihsan said there had been no follow-up on the invitation.

The protests have been called for by several Indonesian student bodies with varying and at times unaligned interests.

Workers with the union Gebrak will also stage a demonstration in Jakarta on Thursday against the heavy-handed security response and demand the release of those detained.

Indonesian authorities have detained over 3,000 people in a nationwide crackdown, New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

“Indonesian authorities should not respond to protests over government policies by using excessive force and wrongfully locking up demonstrators,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director of the group.

President Prabowo Subianto has said the military and police would stand firm against violent mobs, and that some of the unrest bore the signs of terrorism and treason. 

When Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un all appeared together on a Beijing red carpet on Wednesday, it made for a powerful visual of unity against the West — but one that analysts say fell short of proving what Xi boasted was China’s “unstoppable” rise as a global leader.

Although all three nations were sending a pointed rhetorical message, multiple analysts told CNN that they saw nothing to resolve a longstanding debate in the US intelligence community about whether the three should be considered a “bloc” acting in concert or merely three opponents of the West who work together when it suits them.

There were also no outward signs of a substantive change in defense cooperation between any of the three, something that has been closely watched by US security officials particularly after North Korea began offering its soldiers to fight on Russia’s behalf in Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

“Up until now, the so-called Axis of Upheaval has been largely bilateral,” said Beth Sanner, a former senior intelligence official and CNN contributing analyst. “This was really a photo op aimed directly at the US and its Asian allies. But it papered over underlying tensions in particular between China and North Korea…. I doubt this will turn into meaningful trilateral cooperation.”

The three leaders appeared together, chatting genially, ahead of a massive military parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II, a prestige event for China attended by the leaders of 26 countries, thousands of troops and more than 50,000 spectators. President Donald Trump in a post on Truth Social accused the them of “conspiring” against the United States.

“I understood the reason they were doing it, and they were hoping I was watching — and I was watching,” Trump said of the event.

While Putin has embraced Kim for his help, China’s Xi remains wary of the mercurial dictator. When the Russian defense minister visited Pyongyang to attend a military parade in 2023, it was widely seen as a formal signal from Moscow that it accepts North Korea as a nuclear state.

But Xi still “hasn’t given the full stamp of approval,” said Syd Seiler, a former senior intelligence official specializing in North Korea. “I think for Xi, this stops a little short of that,” he said, while still sending the message that China does accept the burgeoning relationship between Russia and North Korea and cannot be counted upon to try to help disrupt or break up that alliance.

The parade followed a regional summit in nearby Tianjin, which was headlined by a series of bilateral economic agreements between India and China. Russia and China on Tuesday also reached a framework agreement on a new natural gas pipeline to run from Russia to China. Although many details remain to be agreed upon, the memorandum still indicates China’s willingness to continue flouting Western efforts to economically isolate Russia over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The parade was nevertheless a visually impressive display of military force, analysts said. China has been in the process of growing and modernizing its military and on Wednesday, unveiled a formidable array of new weaponry, including ICBMs, a hypersonic cruise missile and drones.

It was a clear effort to demonstrate China’s rise on the world stage — a rise that Ely Ratner, a former Pentagon official during the Biden administration specializing in the Indo-Pacific, said is explicitly designed to displace the United States. Sanner called it a “powerful display of China’s soft and hard power” that highlighted “China’s vision of an alternative order with an ‘unstoppable’ China in the lead.”

But Sanner and Ratner both cautioned against breathless assessments of Xi’s success at casting China as a global leader.

“The Japanese weren’t there, the Europeans weren’t there, [Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi] was there for the [Tianjin summit] but he left before the parade, which I think was no accident,” Ratner said. “Yes, China has increasing influence among the anti-American, anti-Western coalition — but that still excludes most of the most important economics and militaries in the world.”

“It’s a more mixed picture than China is winning, and America is losing,” he said.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested he could impose new sanctions on Russia if it refuses to end the war in Ukraine, warning that “you’ll see things happen” if he is not satisfied with President Vladimir Putin’s response.

Trump will also speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky today, a White House official told AFP, after the Zelensky and European leaders said earlier that they expected a call.

“I have no message to President Putin, he knows where I stand, and he’ll make a decision one way or the other,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he met Polish President Karol Nawrocki.

“Whatever his decision is, we’ll either be happy about it or unhappy. And if we’re unhappy about it, you’ll see things happen.”

Trump’s comments came as Putin — who attended a huge military parade in Beijing with Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un of North Korea — vowed to carry on fighting in Ukraine if a peace deal cannot be reached.

The US president’s diplomatic efforts to secure a peace deal appear to have stalled.

Putin has shown little inclination to agree to a two-way meeting that Trump said he was arranging between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders. Trump meanwhile has remained vague on what he will do if Putin fails to play ball.

But Trump rejected suggestions that he was soft on Moscow — citing recent secondary sanctions on India for buying Russian oil, and indicating that more could be on the table.

“You call that no action? And I haven’t done phase two and phase three yet,” added Trump, without elaborating.

Trump is now set to speak to Zelensky and European leaders today.

“I’m having a conversation with him very shortly and I’ll know pretty much what we’re going to be doing,” Trump said in response to a question from an AFP reporter.

A White House official later told AFP: “President Trump was referring to Zelensky. They will be speaking tomorrow.”

The Paris gathering will be held in a mixed format, some leaders attending in person and others via video link. The summit will be followed by phone talks with Trump, to begin at 1200 GMT, and a 1300 GMT press conference, the French presidency said.

Zelensky said earlier Wednesday that he hoped to push Trump for new sanctions.

United States President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he plans to hold talks about the war in Ukraine in the coming days after his Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in August failed to achieve a breakthrough.

Trump has been frustrated at his inability to put a halt to the fighting, which began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, after he initially predicted he would be able to end the war swiftly when he took office in January.

Trump said he would be holding talks in the next few days. A White House official said Trump is expected to speak on the phone on Thursday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The French presidency said earlier today that several European leaders, including Zelensky and France’s Emmanuel Macron, would call Trump on Thursday afternoon.

That call was expected to follow a mostly virtual meeting on Thursday, hosted by France, of some 30 countries to discuss their latest efforts to provide Ukraine with security support once there is a peace agreement with Russia. The European leaders were also expected to denounce Moscow’s unwillingness to negotiate.

Putin has shown little interest in ending the war after he and Trump voiced optimism about making progress during their meeting in Anchorage on August 16.

“I have no message to President Putin,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he met Polish President Karol Nawrocki.

“He knows where I stand, and he’ll make a decision one way or another. Whatever his decision is, we’ll either be happy about it or unhappy about it, and if we’re unhappy about it, you’ll see things happen,” he said.

Trump did not explain what he meant, but he has talked about the possibility of imposing more sanctions on Russia.

Putin tells Ukraine to end war via talks or he will end it by force

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Kyiv that there was a chance to end the war in Ukraine via negotiations “if common sense prevails”, an option he’d prefer, but that he was ready to end it by force if that was the only way.

Speaking in China at the end of a visit there, Putin said that he perceived “a certain light at the end of the tunnel”, given what he said were sincere efforts by the US to find a settlement to Europe’s ‘biggest land war’ since World War Two.

“It seems to me that if common sense prevails, it will be possible to agree on an acceptable solution to end this conflict. That is my assumption,” he told reporters in Beijing.

“Especially since we can see the mood of the current US administration under President Trump, and we see not just their statements, but their sincere desire to find this solution.

“And I think there is a certain light at the end of the tunnel. Let’s see how the situation develops. If not, then we will have to resolve all the tasks before us by force of arms.”

Putin did not, however, indicate any willingness to soften his long-standing demands that Ukraine abandon any ideas of joining Nato, reverse what Moscow has described as discrimination against Russian speakers and ethnic Russians, or step back from the idea that Moscow must have full control of at least the Donbas area in eastern Ukraine.

He said he was ready to hold talks with Zelensky if the Ukrainian president came to Moscow, but that it remained to be seen whether such a meeting was worthwhile.

He repeated his view that Zelensky, who has not faced re-election due to martial law despite his official term in office expiring, was illegitimate. Kyiv flatly rejects that, saying it is impossible to hold meaningful elections at a time of war.

Zelensky has been pressing to meet Putin to discuss the terms of a possible deal, even though the two sides remain far apart, urging Washington to sanction Moscow again if Putin does not agree.

Trump has also said he wants the two leaders to meet and spoken of but not yet imposed secondary sanctions on Russia.

Putin told reporters he had always been open to meeting Zelensky, but reiterated the Kremlin’s oft-repeated stance that such a meeting had to be well prepared in advance and lead to tangible results.

“As for a meeting with Zelensky, I have never ruled out the possibility of such a meeting. But is there any point? Let’s see,” said Putin.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been overheard discussing organ transplants as a means of prolonging life on the sidelines of a military parade in Beijing.

Putin suggested even eternal life could be achievable as a result of innovations in biotechnology, according to a translation of remarks caught on a hot mic.

The unguarded moment was captured on a livestream carried by Chinese state TV as the two leaders and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un walked together through China’s historic Tiananmen Square.

Xi and Putin have been in power for 13 and 25 years respectively. Neither has expressed any intention of stepping down.

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the North Korean and Russian leaders, China’s president used his Victory Day spectacle to project an alternate vision for the future of the world order.

However their private conversation suggests their sights extend beyond the economic and political.

The exchange was relayed by a Mandarin translator for Putin and a Russian translator for Xi, and has been translated into English by the BBC.

“In the past, it used to be rare for someone to be older than 70 and these days they say that at 70 one’s still a child,” Xi’s translator could be heard saying in Russian.

An inaudible passage from Putin follows. His Mandarin translator then added: “With the development of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted, and people can live younger and younger, and even achieve immortality.”

Xi’s translator then said: “Predictions are, this century, there’s a chance of also living to 150 [years old].”

Putin reportedly reprised his remarks later while speaking to Russian media.

Russian state news agency Tass quoted him as saying: “Modern recovery methods, medical methods, even surgical ones dealing with the replacement of organs, enable humanity to hope for active life to last longer than it does today.

“Average age is different in different countries but life expectancy will increase significantly”.

Xi said the world faced a choice between peace and war as China unveiled a huge arsenal of weapons – including nuclear missiles with a global reach – to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two.

Wednesday’s parade marked the first time that the Chinese, Russian and North Korean leaders had appeared together publicly, viewed by some observers as a message to the Western nations that have shunned them.

Putin and Kim joined 24 other dignitaries at the parade, including Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, Pakistan’s PM Shehbaz Sharif, Vietnam’s Luong Cuong and Zimbabwe’s Emmerson Mnangagwa.

China has sought to position itself as a possible counterweight to the US since the imposition of Donald Trump’s tariffs.

On Wednesday, the US president accused Xi of conspiring against the US with the leaders of Russia and North Korea.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un as you conspire against the United States of America.”

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has been busy on the diplomatic front. China has just hosted the largest annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), followed by an impressive military parade to mark the defeat of Japan in the second world war – all accompanied by key bilateral meetings with heads of state from like-minded countries. You could be forgiven for thinking Beijing is now the diplomatic capital of the world.

But look behind the facade of bonhomie on display in the Chinese capital, and the unity underpinning a new China-led global order looks a lot more fragile than Xi would have you believe.

The most important result of the SCO summit on August 31 and September 1 was not the fact that leaders adopted a lengthy communique and more than 20 joint statements on issues as diverse as artificial intelligence, green industries and international trade. What mattered most was the attendance of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, and the rapprochement between New Delhi and Beijing.

This was Modi’s first visit to China in seven years. That his country’s relations with China continue to improve was made clear by Modi’s positive assessment of his bilateral meeting with Xi (“fruitful”) and also their relationship, which he said is based on “mutual respect, mutual interest and mutual sensitivity”.

Another obvious indicator of China trying to pull India closer into the SCO fold was its unequivocal condemnation of the terror attacks in Pahalgam in Kashmir in April 2025. China’s earlier failure to do so had prevented India’s defence minister from signing a similar communique at a meeting of SCO defence ministers in June.

Modi’s attendance also provided the opportunity for him and Xi to demonstrate their continuing support for Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. As far as alliances go, one between China, Russia and India would be a formidable factor in the remaking of the international order. But while there was an impressive display of solidarity between the three leaders, they are united by little more than their opposition to the current US-dominated order.

There was plenty of talk from Xi at the SCO summit about reforming the current system of international affairs – the latest blueprint of which is his Global Governance Initiative, which aims to transform the UN into a Beijing-led instrument. But the prospects of rapid change are limited.

China and India are both deeply integrated into the current international financial and economic system – as are most other SCO member states and partner countries. They may resent Donald Trump and his tariff policies but – with the partial exception of China’s dominance of the global rare-earth trade – they have little leverage.

Another problem for Xi is the fact his various forays into reshaping the international system are at best complementary. There is some overlap between the SCO and his other signature project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). But while the BRI is global and focused primarily on extending China’s reach by economic means, the SCO is much more regional in outlook and focused on security.

Add to that the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group, and China’s approach to remaking the international system begins to look less like a coherent strategy than a series of trial balloons – with even Xi unsure which will eventually pave the way to China’s global leadership role.

A final issue for Xi is that he is limited in his choice of partners. At the SCO summit in Tianjin, it was all about relations between China, Russia and India. Two days later at the victory parade in Beijing, the fledgling alliance between China, Russia and North Korea seemed to take centre stage. However, the absence of Modi from this event demonstrated that India does not want to be too closely associated with North Korea.

Xi has different options in how he pursues his challenge to the current world order – but some are mutually exclusive. Not everyone in his orbit is comfortable with all the political alignments the Chinese president chooses.

Antipathy to US-led order

This is not to say that China’s quest to replace the US as the global superpower is bound to fail. There is a logic to what Xi is doing. He is building a Chinese-dominated sphere of influence in Asia as a power base from which to reach for global hegemony.

But outside a small circle of similarly autocratic leaders, what has propelled this project so far is less the appeal of a China-led international system than dissatisfaction with the existing liberal international order. And while this dissatisfaction predates the current incumbent of the White House, it has been aggravated over the first six months of Trump’s second term.

More than two decades of careful recalibration of US relations with India, including drawing New Delhi into an alliance pushing back against China in Asia, appear recently to have been sacrificed at the altar of Trump’s insatiable vanity.

When India failed to acknowledge his claim to have mediated in its row with Pakistan after the Pahalgam terror attack and declined to join Pakistan in nominating Trump for a Nobel peace prize, his response was to rekindle relations with Pakistan and impose punitive tariffs on India.

Simultaneously, Trump’s wholly misguided America-first foreign policy has undermined the very relationships in Europe and Asia that underpinned the liberal international order and secured US dominance. At least his latest insight – that China, Russia and North Korea “conspire against the United States” – gives a glimmer of hope for America’s concerned allies in the west that the US president will change course in how he deals with Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang.

If Trump doesn’t recognise the value of his country’s allies in managing the challenge that China clearly poses to the US, Xi’s sphere of influence may quickly extend far beyond Asia. This could relegate the US to a second-order power confined to – but not necessarily secure in – a diminishing sphere of influence.