John D. McBeth (31 May 1944 – 6 December 2023) was a New Zealand author and journalist, with the majority of his career spent in Southeast Asia.

Early life and career

John McBeth was born on 31 May 1944,^[1] the son of Sandy McBeth, a Taranaki dairy farmer, and Isla Dickinson, and was born in Whanganui, New Zealand.^[2] He attended New Plymouth Boys' High School.^[3] McBeth commenced work at the Taranaki Herald on 8 February 1962 and moved to the Auckland Star in late 1965.^[4]

Move to Southeast Asia

McBeth left New Zealand around 1970 and headed for Fleet Street in London, but never made it there.^[5] The cargo vessel that he was aboard ran aground during its night-time entry into Tanjung Priok Harbour in Indonesia so he spent time in Jakarta before travelling to Singapore and on to Bangkok.^[6]

Work at the Bangkok Post and in Thailand

McBeth started employment at the Bangkok Post shortly after arriving in Thailand.^[7] He covered stories relating to the Khmer Rouge reign of terror in Cambodia and the Indochinese refugee crisis and appeared briefly as an extra in Michael Cimino's film The Deer Hunter (1978).^[8] McBeth also worked as a freelance reporter in Thailand for Agence France-Presse, United Press International (UPI), London's Daily Telegraph and spent three years writing for Hong Kong's Asiaweek.^[9]

In 1972, during the Vietnam War, McBeth reported that US Airforce B-52 aircraft were being disproportionately brought down in bombing raids because they were flying at low altitudes and on predictable routes in and out of Hanoi.^[10][11]

In December 1972, four Black September Arab guerrillas took over the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok. Six Israeli hostages were taken but released after a 19-hour drama that ended when Supreme Command Chief of Staff Air Chief Marshall Dawee Chullasapya and Deputy Foreign Minister Chatichai Choonhavan took the places of the hostages.^[12] They flew with the terrorists to Egypt.^[12] During the siege, McBeth spoke to one of the hostage takers on the telephone.^[12] In hindsight, he was of the view that the conversation revealed what was finally to break the siege: the terrorists expressed remorse that, unknown to them, they had made their move on the auspicious day marking the investiture of Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, King Bhumibol Adulyadej's son.^[12]

From 1975 to 1976, McBeth reported on the wave of refugees that washed across Southeast Asia at the end of the Vietnam War, the Thai fishermen/pirates who raped and murdered Vietnamese boat people, and the Thai soldiers who forced Cambodian refugees back into a Khmer Rouge minefield instead of allowing them to enter Thailand.^[13] He was one of the few journalists who detected early on the horrifying extent of the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields purges, though this was initially met with incredulity by other correspondents.^[14]

Career at the Far Eastern Economic Review

In May 1979, McBeth joined the staff of the Far Eastern Economic Review;.^[15] In his five years there, he saw five coups in Thailand, including the aborted one that killed his close friend, the Australian cameraman, Neil Davis, in September 1985.^[7]

McBeth then went to head the Review's South Korean bureau. In his three years in Seoul, he focused on the country's transformation from an authoritarian to a fledgling democratic state.^[16] He reported on the arrest and trial of the North Korean spy Kim Hyon-hui, who helped bring down Korean Air Flight 858 over the Gulf of Martaban in November 1987, later became a Christian, and married her South Korean bodyguard; and the spectacular 1988 Seoul Olympics.^[17]

McBeth, together with Nayan Chanda and Shada Islam, revealed in the Review North Korea's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. American and South Korean officials feared that North Korea was building a reprocessing plant next to a 30 mW nuclear reactor north of Pyongyang.^[18] They broke the story in the Review after it was leaked by the Australian Ambassador to South Korea, Richard Broinowski, who had seen American satellite photographs of the Yongbyon site.^[19]

McBeth also worked in the Review's offices in Manila in the Philippines, and in Jakarta, Indonesia, where, among other things, he wrote about feuding Filipino warlords and the fall of President Suharto. In Manila, in 1989, he wrote a series of articles in the Review analysing the reasons for the Philippines' continuing economic malaise at a time when other countries in the region were beginning to prosper.^[20] In the 1990s, McBeth became the Review's bureau chief in Jakarta.^[21] He chronicled growing tensions between President Suharto and some of Indonesia's top politicians and increasing social disturbances, including anti-Chinese riots and troubles in West Kalimantan, which preceded Suharto's resignation and the succession of B. J. Habibie in 1998.^[21] In a series of articles in the Review in 2002, McBeth analysed the investigation into the Bali bombings which killed 202 people.^[22]

Books

McBeth's 2011 book, Reporter: Forty Years Covering Asia, describes many of his stories.^[23] His 2016 book, The Loner: President Yudhoyono's Decade of Trial and Indecision, provides a review of the decade that Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono spent in power.^[24]

Later work

McBeth wrote for Singapore's The Straits Times from the end of 2004 until early 2015, specialising in Indonesian affairs. His work has also appeared in The National (Abu Dhabi), the Nikkei Asian Review, the South China Morning Post and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's official blog The Strategist. He wrote for the Asia Times until shortly before his death.

Personal life and death

McBeth lived in Bali and Jakarta with his wife, an Indonesian journalist named Yuli Ismartono [id].^[7] Ismartono is the mother of CNN correspondent Atika Shubert.^[25]

John McBeth died on 6 December 2023, at the age of 79.^[26]