🌎 'Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?' - US senator asks Singaporean TikTok CEO

[Beijingwalker]

'Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?' - US senator asks Singaporean TikTok CEO​

 

[Beijingwalker]

Singaporeans fume over US lawmaker grilling of TikTok CEO​

https://www.scmp.com/video/world/3250759/singaporeans-fume-over-us-lawmaker-grilling-tiktok-ceo

 

[Beijingwalker]

American politicians are just illiterate when it comes to other countries geography, history and cultures, They keep making a scene on the global stage. Their basic education on the grassroots level is just abysmal.

 

[Beijingwalker]

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

• During Chew’s testimony before US lawmakers about the harms of social media on children, he was pressed repeatedly by Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas
• Netizens criticised the lawmaker over his line of questioning, with one describing it as ‘low-key racist’. Another user said: ‘Just because he looks Chinese does not mean he’s from China’

Kimberly Lim

Published: 7:42pm, 1 Feb, 2024

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

Video clips of a United States senator’s persistent grilling of TikTok’s Singaporean boss on his nationality and links to China’s Communist Party have sparked anger from online users in the island republic, with many criticising the politician’s racism and lack of understanding of Singapore.

Analysts who spoke to This Week in Asia said the exchange was likely to heighten the antipathy of Singaporeans towards US policy-makers, since such “anti-Chinese” rhetoric would rile up citizens in the multiracial city state with an ethnic Chinese majority.

TikTok’s CEO Chew Shou Zi, 41, on Wednesday appeared alongside the chief executives of tech firms Discord, Meta, Snap and X to testify before American lawmakers over concerns about the harmful effects of social media on children.

It was Chew’s second appearance before US lawmakers in less than a year. In March 2023, he was questioned about TikTok’s ties to China and its safety precautions for children, but had gone viral on social media and was crowned the newest internet “zaddy” by young social media users. Chew faced similar questions at Wednesday’s hearing.

However, Singaporeans following Wednesday’s hearing online were most incensed by the way Chew was questioned about his nationality and affiliations with the Chinese government.

“You said today, as you often say, that you live in Singapore. Of what nation are you a citizen?” asked Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

Despite Chew stating he was Singaporean, Cotton continued to press him. “Are you a citizen of any other nation?” he asked, and followed up with whether Chew had ever applied for Chinese citizenship and if he held a Singaporean passport.

Chew responded no to both questions, adding that he had fulfilled his national service to his home country by serving in the Singaporean military for 2½ years, which is a requirement for all Singaporean men.

Cotton also asked if Chew was a member of China’s Communist Party, to which a visibly frustrated Chew responded: “Senator, I’m Singaporean, no.”

The Singapore government does not allow citizens to hold dual nationalities.

A Washington Post technology reporter described Cotton’s line of questioning as “McCarthy-esque”, which refers to accusations of subversion or treason, made without proper regard for the facts, similar to those made by US Senator Joseph McCarthy against alleged communists in the 1950s.

Cotton defended his questioning of Chew’s ties with China’s Communist Party, hours after the hearing concluded. “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 said on Fox News on Wednesday. “So, Mr Chew has a lot to answer for, for what his app is doing in America and why it’s doing it.”

Clips of the exchange went viral on social media on Thursday, and the hashtag #Singaporean trended internationally on X, formerly known as Twitter.

US Senator Tom Cotton. Photo: Getty Images/AFP
Singaporean users called out Cotton over his perceived racism and poor understanding of their country, while others created memes poking fun at the exchange.

“Unsurprised that Americans associate Singapore with China or even a city within China,” wrote one user.

“Paranoia at its highest. And low-key racist,” snapped another.

“Senator, do you know where Singapore is?” one netizen questioned. “Pure ignorance to the highest degree. Just because he looks Chinese does not mean he’s from China,” another said.

One popular meme page, Yeolo.sg, which has more than 78,000 followers on Instagram, posted a snippet of the exchange, along with the caption: “When it’s 2024 but people still think Singapore is in China”.

TikTok is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese tech firm ByteDance. Western governments have raised concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over TikTok’s data on its estimated 150 million American users.

TikTok has gone to great lengths to allay these concerns, claiming it does not share American user data with the Chinese government and would refuse if asked. It has also since promised to store data on servers operated by an outside contractor, Oracle Corp, as part of Project Texas.

The view that Singapore and China hold similar political ideologies among US lawmakers and citizens has long persisted and is not anything new, said Leong Chan-Hoong, a senior fellow for social cohesion research at the Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

“I’m not surprised that some of them are not aware of the geopolitical differences between Singapore and China,” he said. The fact that the city state had an ethnic Chinese majority, and was ruled by one political party for a long time, may also contribute to the impression that China and Singapore shared the same political ideology, he added.

The perception by Singaporeans of the US has been on the decline, said Bilveer Singh, a political scientist from the National University of Singapore. “The US has blundered at home – with political polarisation, racism, government inefficiency and becoming inward-looking – and abroad in foreign policy,” he said, citing examples such as the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

In a 2022 survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre, some 67 per cent of Singaporeans polled viewed China more favourably than the US, a stark contrast to the other 18 countries polled.

Singh added that Cotton’s line of questioning also offended people in the city state, as it seemed to suggest Singaporeans had communist ties just because the population had an ethnic Chinese majority.

Ethnic Chinese residents make up about three-quarters of Singapore’s population, while Malays and Indians make up about 13 and 9 per cent, respectively, according to official statistics.

Singh said the US’ anti-China policies had also “riled up most Singaporeans”, as many interpreted them as racist.

Leong said the perception towards the US was not “completely negative” among citizens of the city state, but that some certainly found US foreign policy and interventionism “disagreeable”.

‘Racist’: Singaporeans slam US senator’s grilling of TikTok CEO’s nationality

During Chew Shou Zi’s testimony before US lawmakers about the harms of social media on children, he was pressed repeatedly by Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

www.scmp.com

 

[Beijingwalker]

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

Published: 9:00pm, 2 Feb, 2024

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.

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.

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.

Opinion | Racism for all to see at US grilling of TikTok’s Singaporean chief

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

www.scmp.com