But Levin, even in those days, was
Latin Fartvell
Even typhoon Pegged failed to dampen top China-watcher and US ConsulGeneral Burton Levin's thoroughly entertaining valedictory speech at the FCC on July 11. And the storm also failed to cool his ardour for the AIISJ journalist (who will remain nameless) who was offered a private answer to her question on Taiwan al2am - at her place of course. Refusing to discuss never-ending textiles issues - "as I'm not a man of the cloth," Levin described his introduction to things Chinese. He studied international affairs (including China) at Columbia where the classical Sinologists, who ruled the aca-
demic roost, considered that nothing that occurred after the Tâng dynasty (about 600 AD) was worth studying. As a result, the young Levin arrived
at his first foreign posting in Taiwan well-schooled in classical Chinese and totally unable to ask for the men's room. He managed to meet.his future wife though.
From Taiwan, his career went on to span Indonesia, Thailand and a total
bullish on China. despatch
China (Taiwan) desk and later the Asian Communist Affairs (PRC) desk.
He also peppered the time with forays into academia, fĂŹrst at Harvard and later for a year at Stanford as a visiting fellow - "it took me a year to figure out what a visiting fellow was supposed
to do."
a
posting to Bolivia when Henry Kissinger
attempted
"In
1967,
I
wrote
to turn US foreign service
cards
-
a
Washington which stated
that future co-operation was on
of l0 years in Hong Kong interspersed with two more spells in Taiwan and several respites in Washington on the
Levin also managed to avoid
to
the
as happened a few years later."
After another whirl on the foreign service merry-go-round to Taiwan and Washington, Levin returned to Hong Kong for a tour that was interrupted by a posting to Bangkok, just two weeks before the Vietnamese marched into Cambodia. Three years and the occasional coup later, he was back in Hong Kong for this final tour. Arriving in late 1982 just as the 1997 question began to loom, Levin was
thrust into the limelight. He hadn't banked on Hong Kong suddenly making
specialists into generalists. It was 1965 when Levin got his first real taste of Hong Kong - although he
the headlines world-wide. But he has done his bit. He was the first to assure future BNOC pSssport holders the US will recognise their
earlier, courtesy of the US Navy. "Never
documentation. And true to form, he's still optimistic about Hong Kong - even afĂžr 199'/ . "China has left it alone for all this time - they are realistic. On the foreign policy side, China has behaved very well. "I couldn't see the US behaving this way if the Brits had retained a sliver of the US after the (American) revolution."
had made a brief visit here 10 years sail between Taiwan February."
in Hong Kong in
But Hong Kong itself didn't impinge much on Levin - he spent all his four years here watching China - and the cultural revolution. "'We knew it was bad, but didn't knowjust how bad until China opened
up again."
He also pointed to how important Hong Kong had become to American business. The US is more economically involved than Britain is in Hong Kong, he said, The US provides 430/o of the foreign investment here as compared to the UK's 6010. Therefore it is not surprising that Americans now outnumber Britons in Hong Kong. And he revealed there is another reason for the US expansion in Hong Kong: American women now only carry their young for five months.
Change at the top
tl
Peter Cordingley has accepted an invitation to join the Board as a journalist member governor to replace Sarah Monks who, having resigned from the SCM Post, remains a co-opted governor.