Malaysia media magnate behind company that owns Sin Chew Daily and Ming Pao dies at 91

KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysian timber and media tycoon Tiong Hiew King, who built a Chinese-language media conglomerate with operations in Malaysia and Hong Kong, died on Nov 11 at the age of 91.

Tan Sri Tiong was a major figure in Malaysia’s Chinese-language media scene.

He played a pivotal role in merging Malaysia’s Sin Chew Media and Nanyang Press Holdings and Hong Kong’s Ming Pao Enterprise to form Media Chinese International Limited (MCIL) in 2007, with the aim of serving global Chinese readers in South-east Asia, Greater China and North America.

The company owns four of Malaysia’s leading Chinese-language newspapers – Sin Chew Daily, China Press, Nanyang Siang Pau and Guang Ming Daily – which collectively exert a strong influence on the country’s 6.84 million-strong Chinese community.

The group also publishes Ming Pao Daily News, serving Hong Kong’s 7.5 million residents, and the Greater China diaspora in Canada.

Mr Tiong had aspired to develop MCIL into a media network comparable with those in the West.

“We Chinese should build and own a Chinese-based media network. We should express our voice through our own stance and values,” he was quoted as saying in February 2009 by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council of China.

Mr Tiong enjoyed a longstanding friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping dating back to 1992. At the time, Mr Xi, then the Communist Party Secretary of Fuzhou city, visited Sibu in Sarawak, where he was warmly welcomed by Mr Tiong, according to Malaysia’s China Press.

Decades later, after rising to the top leadership in China, President Xi surprised Mr Tiong during his first visit to Malaysia in October 2013, saying: “Mr Tiong, you come also. Thank you.”

The eldest of nine children, Mr Tiong was born in Sibu and had a modest upbringing.

He worked as a rubber tapper in his youth. In 1975, he and his brothers founded Rimbunan Hijau, which began as a timber business. It expanded into palm oil plantations, property development and telecommunications, with operations in Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Russia and China.

By the 1990s, Mr Tiong had become one of Malaysia’s most influential tycoons, with interests from forestry to media and telecommunications. He was also one of the country’s wealthiest individuals, with his family’s net worth in April estimated at about US$820 million ($1.07 billion), according to Forbes.

MCIL has maintained a cordial relationship with Beijing, even after Mr Tiong stepped down as executive chairman following a stroke in 2017. He remained executive chairman of Rimbunan Hijau.

Mr Tiong is survived by his wife, four daughters and a son.

The youngest of his daughters, Ms Tiong Chon, was among 30 overseas Chinese representatives invited to attend a meeting of China’s top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, in March 2023.

In a tribute on Sin Chew Daily’s website, its editor-in-chief, Mr Chan Aun Kuang, expressed sadness over Mr Tiong’s death.

“With his lifelong passion for Chinese journalism and literature, our publisher has departed. The entire MCIL family – especially the senior staff and newcomers at Sin Chew Daily – are filled with sorrow,” he said.

However, Mr Tiong’s professional life was not without controversy. During the merger of Sin Chew Media Corporation and Nanyang Press Holdings, he faced accusations of creating a monopoly by consolidating Malaysia’s major Chinese-language newspapers under one umbrella.

The controversy surrounding his media ventures dated back to 2001, when the Malaysian Chinese Association – then the second-largest component party in the Barisan Nasional government – acquired a significant stake in Nanyang Press Holdings.

The move sparked widespread backlash and a boycott by segments of the Chinese community, which viewed it as political interference in Malaysia’s Chinese press.

While acknowledging Mr Tiong’s contribution in elevating Malaysian Chinese media to the world stage, Malaysian political scientist Wong Chin Huat told ST that Mr Tiong’s move “eliminated competition within the industry and shrank the democratic space”.