The Good Fight Club: Why Japan’s “Weirdo” Victory Matters, the Rise of Chinese Soft Power, and the End of Asian Stability episode artwork

EPISODE · Feb 21, 2026 · 1H 13M

The Good Fight Club: Why Japan’s “Weirdo” Victory Matters, the Rise of Chinese Soft Power, and the End of Asian Stability

from The Good Fight · host Yascha Mounk

Yascha Mounk, Bethany Allen, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, and Chang Che examine how Asia is preparing for a more dangerous world. In this week’s episode of The Good Fight Club, Yascha Mounk, Bethany Allen, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, and Chang Che examine the stunning electoral victory of Japan’s new prime minister Sanae Takaichi, China’s coercion tactics and how they’re backfiring across Asia, and what the rise of “authentic outsiders” tells us about the current moment in global democracy.  Bethany Allen is a journalist based in Taiwan and the author of Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World. Pratap Bhanu Mehta is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research and a Visiting Professor at Princeton University.  Chang Che is a nonfiction writer and journalist covering China, and a contributor to The New Yorker and The Guardian. If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following ⁠this link on your phone⁠. Email: [email protected] Podcast production by Jack Shields and Leonora Barclay. Connect with us! ⁠Spotify⁠ | ⁠Apple⁠ | ⁠Google⁠ X: ⁠@Yascha_Mounk⁠ & ⁠@JoinPersuasion⁠ YouTube: ⁠Yascha Mounk⁠, ⁠Persuasion⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠Persuasion Community⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Good Fight Club: Why Japan’s “Weirdo” Victory Matters, the Rise of Chinese Soft Power, and the End of Asian Stability

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