TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi’s Senate grilling on China ties could ‘undermine’ US image: Singapore envoy

Questions like those put to Chew can hurt how America is ‘viewed in different parts of the world’, says city state’s ambassador in Washington

Tense exchange during congressional hearing understood to be catering to a US audience ‘in an election season’ amid data-security concerns

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TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies during a US congressional hearing in Washington on January 31. Photo: AP

Published: 6:30am, 14 Feb 2024Updated: 4:45pm, 15 Feb 2024

Weeks after Singaporeans were left fuming from an American lawmaker’s grilling of TikTok’s CEO over his nationality and links to China’s Communist Party, the island nation’s top envoy in Washington has suggested the line of questioning went too far and could tarnish perceptions of the US.

“Taken too far”, interrogation such as that experienced by Chew Shou Zi, a lifelong Singaporean, “can sometimes possibly undermine the image and understanding of how the US is viewed in different parts of the world, not just in Asia and not necessarily only in Singapore”, said Lui Tuck Yew, Singapore’s ambassador to the US.

Lui gave his thoughts in response to a question posed by the Post at a conference of the Washington International Trade Association in the US capital on Tuesday.

On January 31, Chew appeared alongside the chief executives of tech firms Discord, Meta, Snap and X to testify before the US Senate Judiciary Committee over concerns about the harmful effects of social media on children.

During the hearing, Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, asked Chew if he was a citizen of “any other nation” than Singapore, had ever applied for Chinese citizenship and had any ties to China’s Communist Party.

Clips of the tense exchange went viral on social media, with the hashtag #Singaporean trending internationally on X, formerly known as Twitter. Many netizens of the city state and beyond were not impressed.

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