Gwen Robinson was a quintessential journalist who probed for the best scoop and pried for the juiciest gossip, an old-style old hand the likes of which we are unlikely to see again. In the new contentious era of geopolitical conflict and geoeconomic tension underpinned by American economic nationalism, Robinson's journalist craft over more than four decades explaining and linking Asia and the West will be sorely missed.
A past president of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand and senior fellow of the Institute of Security and International Studies (ISIS Thailand) at Chulalongkorn University, Robinson was a friend, colleague and confidante to many from near and far across ages and places. After putting up a fearless fight against cancer like it was a nuisance to her feverish pace of travels, talks and things in between -- not letting it get her down and downplaying it to her friends and colleagues -- she gave out at 65 without giving in. Her philosophy for life, as she firmly believed, was to go for it in abundant surplus to end up with the optimal maximum.
From 1985, her globetrotting journo journey took her from Sydney with The National Times newspaper to Manila, Bangkok and broader Southeast Asia and then to Tokyo with Nikkei News and later The Times (of London). Her big break came in 1995 when she landed at the Financial Times where she stayed for nearly two long and illustrious decades, variously as correspondent and editor posted in Tokyo, Australasia, New York, Washington DC, and London.
By 2011, she became the FT's bureau chief in Bangkok -- where she had cut her professional teeth as a freelancer in the late 1980s -- covering mainland Southeast Asia. At the time, Myanmar's reopening and ensuing political liberalisation, economic reforms, and development progress after nearly five decades of military dictatorship -- and their associated and attendant problems and challenges -- captivated her attention.
Her career thus pivoted around mid-2013 when she wound down the FT job and took on new pursuits, intent on writing a book about Myanmar and straddling the confluence of policy, media, academia, and Southeast Asia's think-tank network. It was on this basis that she applied for an affiliation with ISIS Thailand at Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Political Science. As its director from 2006 to 2022, I had known Robinson since June 2012 from seminars, conferences, and her FT bylines. As her intellect, experience, and personal network heightened our value, I promptly accepted Robinson as Senior Fellow in June 2013, a position she held until her passing.
As it turned out, the Myanmar book eluded her. Robinson was not the type to sit in an academic office writing without a ready room for a smoke. She was also footloose with fluid global footprints, always set for the next reporting trip to this and that country before long, not to mention myriad contacts from different but interesting walks of life for her to keep up with. To be sure, her Myanmar passion never wavered. With Bangkok as base, she travelled to Myanmar so often that she once proclaimed herself the "queen" of AirAsia, the low-cost carrier.
In 2014, she taught and coordinated a Myanmar postgraduate course at Chula, which gave her pride and pleasure and provided the university with a veteran journo from the field. By then, she was a fixture at ISIS Thailand's Myanmar- and Asean-related events and forums on broader geopolitics and geoeconomics as moderator and speaker. Myanmar was really the story behind her story. Whether the heyday of the 2010s or the darkness from the February 2021 military coup, Robinson was a student and observer of Myanmar, a critic of its military regime, a supporter and friend to its downtrodden people, and an advocate for its democratisation and development.
Her ISIS hat coincided with the plan, build-up and launch of the Nikkei Asian Review in November 2013. Robinson was instrumental in the Nikkei's English-language platform. When she roped me into contributing an opinion piece at the outset -- it ended up as "Myanmar as the ultimate global pivot" -- I learned firsthand how she had assembled a global network of editors and contributors from her vast constellation of seasoned media contacts.
Working with Robinson meant working late. She was nocturnal and didn't seem to sleep much, a testament to her approach towards living beyond the fullest to get the full. She seemed more energised as more emailing and editing went back and forth in the wee hours with editors in UK and US time zones. Two years later, Robinson played a significant role in the Nikkei's acquisition of and marriage with the FT. For her, it was the best of both worlds, her old paper with her deep Japanese roots hitching with the UK broadsheet where she had spent her best journalist years. Unsurprisingly, she retained an editorial portfolio until the very end as editor-at-large at what is now known as Nikkei Asia.
Robinson was adored by her legions of friends and fans everywhere, even though she almost always ran late to whatever it was that she was supposed to be doing. She had a way of not missing a beat in a seminar or conversation, even though she was texting half the time. Robinson had a way of growing on people -- ambassadors, academics, development specialists, activists of all stripes, businesspeople, office assistants, artists, singers, socialites, hoteliers, restauranteurs, motorbike taxi drivers, among others -- once people met her, they were interested in getting to know her.
She was feisty and fierce, independent and irreverent, warm and connectible, generous and kind, a habitual bearer of thoughtful little gifts for her friends from her various travels -- truly one of a kind who will be missed in the intersecting communities and circles of media, academia, diplomacy, government, and civil society.
Her demise at a local hospital was partly triggered by the powerful and debilitating earthquake in Myanmar on March 28 that also rocked Bangkok. Robinson would be distressed today over the desperate Myanmar people reeling from the devastating quake aftermath. She would also be incensed and intent on getting the scoop as to why Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the military dictator who has placed Myanmar in such a violent mess since his February 2021 coup, is being invited to a regional meeting in Bangkok this week. Such was her spirit of asking the tough questions and fighting the good fight for those who cannot do it on their own.