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Alex Lo

By now, politicians in the US Congress are probably the only people unaware – or pretend to be – that TikTok chief executive Chew Shou Zi is from Singapore. Everyone else knows. I know. I mean, is Bill Gates American?
But since the poor guy looks Asian, he must be a Chinese national, and by extension, a member of the Chinese Communist Party, which in the parallel universe of Washington, is the real puppet master behind the hugely popular social media platform.
How else do you explain the disgraceful performance of Republican Senator Tom Cotton who kept asking Chew about his connections to the Chinese Communist Party, despite the tech executive repeatedly asserting that he was Singaporean at a Senate hearing this week.
Even after Chew said, “Senator, I’m Singaporean. No.”, Cotton demanded to know about his passport for proof of citizenship.
‘Racist’: Singaporeans slam US senator’s grilling of TikTok CEO’s nationality
Singapore does not allow dual nationalities.
The recorded embarrassing exchange has gone viral, especially in Singapore where netizens have called out Cotton over his perceived racism and poor understanding of their country, while memes have been created to poke fun at the senator from Arkansas.
To provoke further Singaporean outrage, Cotton rubbed salt into the wound by claiming their country, one of America’s long-standing allies in the region, was being overrun by Chinese spies. “Singapore, unfortunately, is one of the places in the world that has the highest degree of infiltration and influence by the Chinese Communist Party,” Cotton subsequently told Fox News. “So, Mr Chew has a lot to answer for, for what his app is doing in America and why it’s doing it.”


Chew’s app? It’s so unlike the harm caused by all-American Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and myriad social media platforms! Chew’s CEO peers – Discord’s Jason Citron, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, Linda Yaccarino of X, formerly called Twitter, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg were all testifying on the same occasion but none was subjected to the same disgraceful grilling.
What is worse is that this wasn’t the first time he had to explain his nationality in a congressional testimony.
Last year, over 4½ hours of vicious questioning by members of both parties, Chew also had to explain he was Singaporean, and not a Chinese national nor a member of the Communist Party. Joseph McCarthy would be proud he had spawned so many imitators.
That McCarthyite TikTok hearing was also widely reported, so people such as Cotton on Capitol Hill should have known by now that their favourite ethnic social media punching bag is a Singaporean.
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Either he didn’t know, in which case he was remarkably ignorant, or he actually knew, but was just grandstanding with anti-China theatrics that are typical of Washington politicians nowadays. I don’t know which is worse.
But it’s all par for the course for politicians like Cotton. Without a shred of evidence that Iran was behind a drone attack which resulted in the death of three US soldiers in Jordan, warmongers such as Cotton, and fellow Republican senators Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn are already demanding an immediate attack on Iran, at the risk of starting another full-blown Mideast war.
But Cotton’s borderline fascism could even be directed at the domestic population as well. In 2020, there were widespread protests in US cities against what was subsequently ruled a murder by a police officer in the death of George Floyd. In a controversial op-ed in The New York Times titled “Send In the Troops”, Cotton demanded the deployment of the military to quell the unrest.
This was the same guy who was cheering on, just months before, the rioters in Hong Kong and denouncing “police violence” during the 2019-20 anti-government unrest. The Times subsequently issued a long official statement admitting the opinion piece did not meet its editorial standards. The opinion page editor was asked to resign.
There are many upstanding and excellent politicians in the US. Unfortunately, there are many dangerous ones like Cotton.


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Diplomacy

Racism for all to see at US grilling of TikTok’s Singaporean chief Chew Shou Zi

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with other social media platform heads on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 31, 2024. Photo: AP

Singapore’s Gen Z gives TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi ‘zaddy’ status for his savvy handling of US Congress

TikTok’s CEO Chew Shou Zi speaks at a hearing of the House Committee. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Chew Shou Zi speaks during the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore in November 2022. File photo: Bloomberg

Meta, Amazon beat expectations with stellar results

In an aerial view, people take pictures in front of a sign at Meta Platforms' headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on July 7, 2023. Photo: Getty Images/TNS

A worker prepares boxes during a media tour ahead of the holiday season at the Amazon Fulfillment Centre in Tepotztlan, Mexico December 13, 2023. Photo: Reuters

Singaporeans slam US senator’s grilling of TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi’s nationality, links to China: ‘pure ignorance’

TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi testifies before a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on protecting children from sexual exploitation online, in Washington, DC, on January 31. Photo: EPA-EFE

US Senator Tom Cotton. Photo: Getty Images/AFP

Opinion

Comment

Abuse and constant references to Chinese Communist Party by senator right out of McCarthyite era and reason for world to be wary of America


Abuse and constant references to Chinese Communist Party by senator right out of McCarthyite era and reason for world to be wary of America.


My Take

TikTok

United States

Singapore

Racism and other prejudice

Evan Spiegel

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

My Take | Racism for all to see at US grilling of TikTok’s Singaporean chief Chew Shou Zi

Abuse and constant references to Chinese Communist Party by senator right out of McCarthyite era and reason for world to be wary of America