East Asia is home to diverse political regimes, economies, and religions, and is central to global economic trade and growth. But it is also a region increasingly defined by U.S.-China competition. Moving forward, what role Japan will play in upholding a rules-based order, and how will China's rise influence domestic political trends, particularly in Southeast Asia? In this podcast, the second episode a four-part podcast series from the  at the Brookings Institution, host talks with Senior Fellows and  about challenges to democracy in East Asia. Taussig is a a nonresident fellow with the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings and a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellow based in Berlin. Stromseth is the Lee Kuan Yew Chair in Southeast Asian Studies and Solís is the Philip Knight Chair in Japan Studies, as well as director of the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings. Subscribe to Brookings podcasts  or on , send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at  on Twitter. The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the .