[4] Prior to entering politics, Tong was a lawyer at Allen & Gledhill practising extensively in corporate and commercial disputes, restructuring and insolvency matters, and international arbitration.

[5] Tong was educated at St. Joseph's Institution and Raffles Junior College[6] before graduating from the National University of Singapore in 1994 with a Bachelor of Laws degree.

[10] During the trial, which lasted from 2012 to 2018, a front-page headline from the Chinese tabloid Lianhe Wanbao, which had been edited to insinuate that Tong and the People's Action Party (PAP) had saved Kong from harsher penalties, appeared on social media.

On 5 February 2018, the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) mentioned that it would take legal action against a man responsible for publishing the image, which amounts to contempt of court.

The PAP team won 58.56% of the vote against the Workers' Party (WP) and Tong was elected a Member of Parliament representing the Jalan Besar division.

[6] In the 2015 general election, Tong joined the five-member PAP team contesting in Marine Parade GRC and they won 64.07% of the vote against the WP.

One of the activists, Kirsten Han, was questioned by Tong over an article she had written for the Asia Times whose relevance to the committee's terms of reference was not made clear.

[14] In the 2020 general election, Tong managed to retain his parliamentary seat in Marine Parade GRC after the five-member PAP team won 57.76% of the vote against the WP.