🌍 US lawmakers grill TikTok

🗺️ AROUND THE WORLD

1. 🇰🇷 South Korea: Police in Montenegro arrested Korean crypto fugitive Do Kwon, wanted for misleading investors to the tune of $40B. Police say he was attempting to fly to Dubai using a fake Costa Rican passport.

2. 🇷🇸 Serbia: Protestors demanded President Vucic resign on Friday over plans to settle a simmering conflict with Kosovo. The plan would allow Kosovo to seek membership in international organisations, and grant substantial autonomy to ethnic Serbs in Kosovo.

3. 🇰🇭 Cambodia: Police have arrested two Cambodian activists for violating the country’s lèse-majesté law against insulting the king. The two men could face up to 5 years in prison if convicted.

4. 🇲🇽 Mexico: The president (‘AMLO’) has admitted Mexican spy agencies hacked into the phone of a prominent activist. AMLO says the government was investigating the activist’s alleged connections to drug cartels.

5. 🇷🇼 Rwanda: Paul Rusesabagina, who saved thousands of lives while managing a hotel during the Rwandan Genocide, was released from prison on Friday. Portrayed in the film Hotel Rwanda, Rusesabagina was sentenced to 25 years in prison on terrorism charges in 2021.

🇺🇸 🇨🇳 US-CHINA | TECHNOLOGY

TikTok’s CEO gets grilled in Congress

Briefly: TikTok CEO Shou Chew appeared before a hostile US Congress on Thursday to answer questions about his company’s connections to Beijing. His appearance did little to calm US concerns that the popular short-form video app poses a threat to US national security.

Congress doesn’t agree on much. But Republicans and Democrats are in lockstep on two things: wariness towards Beijing, and a love of publicly dunking on political targets. Unfortunately for TikTok – the $220B tech giant owned by Chinese firm ByteDance – it sits right in the middle of that Venn diagram.

At the heart of US concern is a 2017 law in Beijing requiring “any organisation" to cooperate with the Chinese government. And these concerns aren’t entirely hypothetical. TikTok has previously:

• Censored videos in the US mentioning Tiananmen and Tibet, and

• Targeted US journalists in China.

Mr Chew faced some direct questioning on these issues. But testifying under oath, the Harvard-educated Singaporean didn’t always give direct answers:

• Does ByteDance have access to TikTok’s US user data? “I’ve seen no evidence”, Chew answered.  

• Is TikTok a Chinese company? “That’s not how we see it”, Chew responded.

But as it turns out, that’s exactly how the Chinese government sees it: last week, Beijing announced it would oppose any forced sale of TikTok to a US buyer.

The other possible outcome is that the US will ban TikTok. But that comes with its own challenges, including the fact that plenty of TikTok’s 150 million US users will come of (voting) age before election day in November 2024.

Intrigue’s take: Mr Chew tried valiantly to distance TikTok from the fractious US-China relationship by emphasising the firm’s multinational executive team, its Singapore and Los Angeles HQ, and its majority ownership by global investors.

But in a hearing about TikTok’s connections with Beijing, Mr Chew still came across as a CEO who doesn’t have final say in his own company. So one way or another, it’s hard to see TikTok surviving Washington’s politics unscathed.

Also worth noting:

• TikTok’s CEO published an upbeat video after the hearing, generating millions of views and 176,000 mostly positive comments.

• TikTok users took aim at Congress after the hearing, variously describing it as “embarrassing” and “out of touch”.

• A secretive US regulator released an unusual statement while the hearing was underway, emphasising its power to block transactions with unresolved national security concerns.

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Opposition leader disqualified from parliament after two-year jail sentence

Briefly: India’s parliament has disqualified Rahul Gandhi, the leader of India’s main opposition party, after he was sentenced to two years in jail for an insult involving Indian Prime Minister Modi. Or, rather, Modi’s surname.

The insult in question: Back in 2019, Gandhi pondered why “all thieves have Modi as [their] common surname”. A fellow MP (also named Modi) filed the defamation case against Gandhi, who has vowed to fight the court’s decision.

A stunning 43% of MPs elected in 2019 have criminal cases against them, many of which are clearly political in nature. But the length and timing of Gandhi’s sentence raises more eyebrows than a Botox technician: it’s just long enough to trigger Gandhi’s disqualification from parliament, and just ahead of next year’s elections.

Intrigue’s take: The ultra-popular Modi has little to fear from Gandhi or any other opposition leader right now. But Gandhi has already made headlines in an attempt to walk (literally) his way back into political power. And there’s nothing like an unjust jail sentence to generate a bit more voter sympathy.

These sorts of cases also put the West in a bind: wanting to partner with India to balance China, but getting these periodic reminders that India doesn’t always see the world in the same way.

Also worth noting:

• Prime Minister Modi enjoys an approval rating of 78%, one of the highest in the world.

• Some have accused Modi of attempting to “[impair] freedom of expression and freedom of association”.

👀 EXTRA INTRIGUE

As ever, a roundup of funny news to get you diving chin-first into your Monday:

• Whiskey giant Jack Daniels has hauled a dog toy company to the US Supreme Court over a squeaky toy resembling its iconic bottle.

• A Florida man was bitten by an alligator after he answered the door to see who was knocking (it was the alligator).

• Three professors wrote a paper on the dangers of AI and plagiarism… and used ChatGPT to prove their point.

• A dedicated pet owner put her cat on dating apps after the furry companion went missing.

📸 PHOTO OF THE DAY

A Few Degrees More…

Your eyes aren’t playing tricks, that painting is definitely tilted. The infuriating / brilliant mounting is part of a new initiative at the Leopold Museum in Vienna to raise awareness of climate change and the effects of a few more degrees.

Thursday’s poll: What do you think of the annual US Human Rights Report?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 👍 It's a useful tool to shine a light on abuses around the world (50%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🙅‍♀️ It's biased, hypocritical and useless (40%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🖋️ Other (write in!) (10%)

Your two cents:

• 🖋️ G.S: “To be completely honest, I don’t really see what is the point of it – it does not guide US foreign policy nor actually influence (the reputation) of other countries.”

• 👍 J.D: “As an American I would appreciate if this report highlighted our own issues. It would give the report more credibility worldwide”