Journalist John McBeth, 1944–2023
John McBeth, a New Zealand-born journalist who is renowned throughout Asia for his meticulous and ground-breaking monitoring, passed away shortly after becoming ill. He weighed 79.
McBeth’s reporting over a more than 62-year job influenced events in nations like South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia.
Earlier in the 1990s, I first met John as a new editor at the Far Eastern Economic Review. He was already one of my heroes.  , I read his narratives in the school library’s Review while I was a student in London.  ,
His engrossing records of conflicts, coups, and nebulous political plots stoked my interest in Asia, which eventually inspired me to relocate there and work as a blogger.
John was a blunt-spoken “old class” writer. His writing did n’t hold back and had a significant impact on many of the region’s policymakers over the years. In nations where the reality was obscured by censorship or historically driven obscurity,  ’s clear explanatory style, which was frequently proof to editing, made his articles readily accessible to both locals and foreigners.
We collaborated on numerous stories in Indonesia around the downfall of President Suharto in 1998, and I recall a include tale in the Review about the central part of wealthy elites in Philippine politics that was published under the banner article” Bossism.”
John sat at the keyboard of our ancient office desktop computers spewing out straightforward but powerful prose as protests broke out in Jakarta and soldiers opened fire on students. I followed behind him and occasionally kindly allowed him to insert more complex explanations.
He was on the piano’s guitar area, and I was playing the conflicting black keys, making it feel like a duet.
He may say that we were the most unlikely of companions. John, the son of a Taranaki cheese farmer, was born on May 31, 1944, in Whanganui, New Zealand. My more wild upbringing and my elite British education frequently caused us to disagree on more important issues. We shared a love of Asia and the desire to write great stories.  ,
John liked to boast that he had worked as a blogger longer than any of us. Beginning in 1962, when I was four years old, he began working for the Taranaki Herald. In later 1965, he relocated to the Auckland Star. He recalled covering the Beatles ‘ visit to New Zealand and conducting interviews with the Rolling Stones.
Early on, he wanted to work on Fleet Street in London, but when his goods ship sank in Jakarta due to a ship’s grounded. He fell in love with Asia as soon as he stepped ashore and stayed ever since. He frequently reprimanded several of his colleagues who came to the area for a few years but not stayed because he took pleasure in being an Eastern “lifer.”
McBeth spent time in Jakarta and Singapore before settling in Thailand for fifteen years. There, he worked for magazines like the Asiaweek, which is based in Hong Kong, the Bangkok Post, and Agence France- Presse, United Press International, London’s Daily Telegraph, among others.
Early reports from Thailand by McBeth, who wrote passionately about the situation of immigrants and battle victims, concentrated on the Eastern migrant crisis and the Vietnam War. The Thai bandits who raped and killed Vietnamese boatmen were the subject of his writing.
After a lengthy immediately bus ride from Bangkok, he frequently arrived at the border to interview survivors. He was one of the first American journalists to expose the Khmer Rouge’s tyrannical rule in Cambodia.
McBeth joined the High Eastern Economic Review team in May 1979. There, he covered five dictatorships, including the failed one in Bangkok that killed American photographer Neil Davis in 1985.
McBeth loved Thailand and its citizens and was a more than lifelong member of Bangkok’s hard-working global media army.  , Yuli Ismartono, a international journalist from Indonesia, and he met in Bangkok.  ,
From Review reports bureaus in Bangkok, Seoul, Manila, and Jakarta, he produced scientific articles and numerous special reports. McBeth revealed that North Korea was developing a atomic weapons while he was in Seoul working with colleagues Nayan Chandra and Shada Islam.
McBeth had his leg amputated while based in Manila, but he was adamant that it would n’t hurt his career and soon returned to writing exclusives for the Review. Yuli supported him throughout his condition and gave him back his confidence so he could resume area reporting.
John wrote sections for the Singapore Straits Times from the end of 2004 until the beginning of 2015, focusing on Indonesian and local affairs. Additionally, his work has been published in The National ( Abu Dhabi), the Nikkei Asian Review, the South China Morning Post, The Strategist by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and most recently the Asia Times.
Some of McBeth’s stories are described in his 2011 text” Reporter: Forty Times Covering Asia.” The Loner: President Yudhoyono’s Decade of Trial and Indecision, his 2016 guide, examines the ten-year reign that Susilo Bambang Yujhodyonok ruled over.
Some of Asia’s officials, politicians, and policymakers had McBeth as a friend.
Many of the local journalists in the area looked up to him for guidance and inspiration, especially those who worked for neighborhood publications. He also railed against reporters whose writings failed to distinguish between reality and mind.  ,
He once exploded at a sub-editor at the Review who claimed that Asian audiences would n’t understand the allusion when he made reference to something not being” silver bullet,” which could be an editor’s nightmare.
On the other hand, readers of Asia Times rarely received cleaner version and dared not proceed a comma without his gracious consent. One of the last of a century of foreign journalists to live the narrative and call Asia house, McBeth noted in his final report to Asia Times that he had first arrived in Asia by ship rather than aircraft.
He is survived by his family Yuli Ismartono, a well-known journalist in Indonesia. At Asia Times, he may be terribly missed.
( Reporting from Bangkok was contributed by Shawn W. Crispin )