COMMENT | I don’t think I have ever taken offence at the words or actions of Bintulu MP Tiong King Sing deemed ‘abnormal’ in the past.

Tiong is not a minister; he is only a government backbencher. Even if his appointment as Special Envoy to China came with ministerial rank, he is not in charge of a ministry.

(We can recall how he rejected his initial appointment as a deputy minister in the Peritakan Nasional government as he felt slighted by the junior post.)

I’m not sure how many of us really know the functions and duties of a special envoy and whether that position is necessary or functional.

What I’m driving at is that I do not consider Tiong a political heavyweight as he does not make major decisions in the government.

Thus, what he says or does, even if wrong, callous and out of sync, is forgettable and forgivable. I found them tolerable all along.

However, this was not the case yesterday...