By Jay Scott Kanes
HONG KONG -- After more than a half-century in Asia, print and broadcast journalist Harvey Stockwin has earned a reputation for being forthright and comprehensive.
Now the 74-year-old newsman is poised to achieve a significant milestone. On October 6, listeners to RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) Radio 3 will hear the 500th edition of Harvey’s weekly commentary, Reflections From Asia.
“The theme of my life is journalism in depth,” Harvey said. Since the first of his 15-minute shows on January 3, 1998, he has focused on important events, adding analysis, interpretation and predictions, always carefully reasoned and laced with history.
“This defies an industry trend,” he said. “Most broadcasters reject the notion of one person talking for so long. Usually, analysis involves asking two questions, getting one-sentence replies, and then saying ‘thanks’. It’s appalling and simplistic. So I’m glad to do Reflections From Asia, which isn’t simplistic and deals with the world as it is – in depth.”
Phil Whelan, RTHK’s producer for Reflections, said: “No other show goes into such depth or has such a grasp of Asian events and history.”
Reflections From Asia airs at 7:30 a.m. on Saturdays with an encore broadcast at 6:30 p.m. on Sundays. Internet listeners tune in anytime via the archives at: http://www.rthk.org.hk/channel/radio3/.
“Harvey should be very famous because what he does is so valuable,” Phil said. “He could never be accused of self-censorship, and I like that. In Hong Kong, everyone else pulls their punches, but Harvey carries on telling it like it really is.… If anyone tried to pressure him, it’d feature in his next broadcast. He’s a pillar of free speech.”
Recent commentaries included: Change in Burma; Kimjongilias Still Bloom; Vietnam, the US and Iraq; Thai People Power Required; and Breaking a Basic Law Promise.
“Harvey makes issues understandable, but without dumbing them down,” Phil said. “He can start off talking about the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and end up on Aung San Suu Kyi’s husband, yet somehow there’s a link. That’s talent and a big part of his magic.”
One favorite topic, starting with the first broadcast nearly 10 years ago, is GNP. But to Harvey, GNP means Growth in National Politics, not Gross National Product. “Without growth in real GNP, the statistics of growth in the economic GNP may be fraudulent at worst, misleading at best,” he said.
“The best illustration of real Growth in National Politics came from Indonesia in 2004, as it strengthened its democracy with three nationwide elections in succession, ending with the first-ever direct election for president and vice-president.”
Relying on his experiences and a piled-to-the-ceiling book collection, Harvey writes at home on Lantau Island. “I may not decide on the topic until Wednesday or Thursday of the week,” he said.
Sometimes he tests ideas on his long-time partner, fellow journalist Isabel Escoda. “My better half puts up with my tensions, traumas and tantrums as I research and write,” Harvey said.
On Friday afternoons, he breezes into an RTHK studio, sits at a microphone and reviews his 2,000-word text. Then it’s time to record, which he does complete with hand motions and tapping feet, stopping and starting as needed to insert the proper inflections.
Along the way, Phil advises: “Relax. Take a breath,” “Start that last section again”, “Push the microphone away a little” or “You’re belting a bit much. Go down half a gear.”
In a 1997 phone call, RTHK’s Phil Gordon asked Harvey to do four shows. Once started, he didn’t stop.
“We began with the title Wandering and Wondering,” Harvey said. “Then Martin Clarke of RTHK helped me to dream up a better one, Reflections From Asia.”
The response from listeners is “all good”, Phil said. “Everyone who listens appreciates that it’s no-nonsense stuff.”
After 500 shows, does Harvey have a favorite one? “From the point of view that my ideas came together well, and that by the end I had to fight back tears, then Number 66 (Since Ancient Times How Few Lovers?, April 3, 1999) about the death of Michael Aris, Aung San Suu Kyi’s husband, is my favorite,” he said.
Raised in London, Harvey entered journalism in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1955. “I earned the fare to Ceylon by working as a London bus conductor,” he said.
Although based in Hong Kong since 1977, Harvey has traveled and worked across Asia with lengthy stays in India, Malaysia, Australia, the Philippines and elsewhere. He wrote for the South China Morning Post, The Times of India, The Jakarta Post, The Japan Times and the Far Eastern Economic Review, among others.
In 1998, Harvey even appeared in Chinese Box, a Hollywood movie starring Jeremy Irons and Gong Li. The director, Wayne Wang, cast him as an opinionated journalist discussing Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty.
To Harvey, which Asian events since the 1950s had the greatest impact? He mentions several:
• Singapore and Malaysia’s unity in 1963, followed by separation in 1965. (“That was traumatic, a great attempt to form a multi-racial Malaysian state, but it failed.”)
• Momentous events as a new Indonesian president, Suharto, replaced his predecessaor, Sukarno, in 1967. (“At the time, Suharto was regarded as saving the country. That he stayed on too long reflects how things often work in Asia. In China, Chairman Mao did the same.”)
• The assassination of senator Ninoy Aquino in 1983, followed by a “people power” uprising that toppled president Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines in 1986; and
• The 1989 Beijing massacre and China’s nation-wide crackdown on dissent. (“Political progress in China came to a screeching halt.”)
Harvey tends to discount China’s economic clout: “To some extent, China’s a mirage. There’s been very little Growth in National Politics. In the long run, economic growth can’t be sustained by one man, one group or one party – or by a people afraid to think for themselves and to express their opinions.
“China may fall into a trap it’s carefully setting for itself. Information is controlled. So is the media. All the necessary data may not be available to confront the crises sure to arise.
“All manner of dissent is forbidden and suppressed. This discourages the majority from departing from the restrictive party line. Without debate and disagreement, the thrust towards more corruption is enhanced. Nepotism becomes even more of an economy-sapping habit.”
These shortcomings weaken Hong Kong too. “It’s clearer and clearer that China has decided there won’t be democracy in China, and so there won’t be democracy in Hong Kong,” Harvey said.
Hong Kong’s press freedoms dwindle. “People may say there’s no self-censorship, but that’s nonsense,” Harvey said. “You need only pick up a newspaper to see events falsely analysed to justify China. Taiwan’s always in the wrong, China’s always in the right. In my view, it’d be the other way around because China continually alienates Taiwan, making it take the positions it does.”
Harvey bows “only to the canons of good journalism”. So Hong Kong’s waning media freedoms can’t vanish entirely while he keeps on “reflecting”.
Harvey's book collection touches the ceilings.
Tapes of Reflections From Asia reach the big 500.
In 1998, Harvey appeared in the movie Chinese Box.
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