ratings have started to dip. “Most of my friends thought: ‘Wow! She seems different, she might be able to do something for us’,” explains Ichisawa Konagi, a 21-year-old in Tokyo, though she adds that many of her friends would struggle to explain any of Ms Takaichi’s policies. The danger is that online campaigning encourages politicians to become more provocative in their hunt for clicks and views. Sanseito, which ran on an anti-immigrant platform, has managed to win over many young voters. Tamekuri Masaya, a 34-year-old supporter in Imabari in the west of Japan, feels the country is “getting invaded”. Distrusting mainstream media, he gets his news online. Masuo Hiroshi, who makes money posting political videos on YouTube, says he gets more views when he flatters right-leaning politicians and mocks liberals and leftists. Furuya Tsunehira, a commentator, reckons that a small network of right-wing users sets the tone for a far larger audience with no strong views of their own. Some pundits liken youngsters’ political engagement to “oshikatsu”, a term used for pop-idol fandom. Younger Japanese are likely to support socially progressive values, but not to vote for leftist politicians espousing such policies. They have grown up wary of bellicose neighbours such as North Korea and China. The left’s opposition to military spending and its decades-long insistence on preserving Japan’s pacifist constitution feel out of touch, observes Murohashi Yuki of the Japan Youth Council, a pressure group. The same is true of nuclear power: many young people take a pragmatic view and favour restarting plants shut down after the Fukushima disaster in 2011; older progressives still staunchly oppose this. “Young people are not necessarily shifting to the right,” says Mr Murohashi, “but they are becoming more realistic.” Dismissing their political engagement as mere fandom may be missing the point. ■ For exclusive coverage of Asian politics, economics and security, sign up to Asia Bulletin, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/asia/2026/07/30/japanese-politics-is-becoming-less-of-a- turn-off-for-the-young
Beerlao: probably the most important lager in the world Its country’s economy depends on it Jul 30th 2026 BUT FOR a few crumbling villas, little French influence survives in Laos nearly 73 years after the end of colonial rule. It is China that shapes the fortunes of its poor and landlocked southern neighbour. But one French legacy lingers. In 1973 French and Lao businessmen founded a joint venture, Brasseries et Glacières du Laos. Now called the Lao Brewery Company (LBC), it sits in a different joint venture, between the state and Carlsberg, a Danish giant. Its signature product, Beerlao, probably matters more to its home country than any other beer in the world. Beerlao is everywhere in Laos. Its branding is emblazoned on T-shirts and billboards. A marketing campaign fusing the drink with national identity
(“Be Lao”) has helped, as has Laotians’ prodigious thirst for beer. Kirin, a Japanese brewer, puts this at 55 litres per person a year, more than in any other Asian country. Nearly 90% of that is Beerlao, says Carlsberg, for which Laos, with just 7.9m people, is the second-biggest Asian market after China. Its success is not a mystery. European malt and hops are combined with locally grown jasmine rice, making a light, faintly sweet lager (often drunk with ice by locals). It wins international awards, too, and on travel forums backpackers swear by it, loving both the taste and the price—a 640ml bottle costs around 20,000 kip ($0.90). In 2024 sales of the stuff amounted to $600m, equivalent to some 3.5% of the country’s GDP. That year LBC also paid 5.1trn kip ($240m) in taxes, a third more than the year before, making it comfortably the country’s largest taxpayer. Exports to the Asian region are growing. Yet celebrating Beerlao leaves a hangover. Its success reflects the economy’s moribund state. One-party rule has failed to kick-start other industries; the thriving ones—hydropower and mining—create too few jobs. LBC should be a model for others, argues Phouphet Kyophilavong of the National University of Laos, of how foreign investment can boost the economy. But for now LBC is drinking alone. ■ For exclusive coverage of Asian politics, economics and security, sign up to Asia Bulletin, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/asia/2026/07/30/beerlao-probably-the-most-important- lager-in-the-world
Narendra Modi is on a quest to regain his aura What India’s government learnt from recent student protests Jul 30th 2026 TWO YEARS ago the Indian electorate handed a shock result to Narendra Modi. His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had predicted a supermajority. Voters deprived it even of a simple majority and forced it into a coalition. Mr Modi’s “aura of invincibility” had been lost, crowed commentators. Yet the party soon earned it back by flattening rivals in most state elections that followed. A similar triumphalism is in the air among Mr Modi’s critics now. Student protests in Delhi and elsewhere culminated on July 25th with the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the education minister. Crucial exam papers had leaked repeatedly. The annual medical-college entrance test was compromised this May for the second time in three years. In most
democracies a ministerial resignation for outright incompetence is embarrassing, but unexceptional. For Mr Modi’s government, which has made it a point of principle never to succumb to pressure, it is extraordinary. That trope about a lost aura of invincibility is doing the rounds again. Will it prove more accurate this time? The BJP is not a party that smiles magnanimously in the face of defeat. The lesson Mr Modi and his party took from their setback in 2024 was to double down on their strengths. The BJP boosted its grassroots organisation, it splurged more on welfare, and its dirty-tricks department found novel ways to hobble the opposition. Yet recovering its swagger after the government’s first forced resignation in its 12 years in power is a different challenge from asserting itself at the polling booth. Mr Modi has in recent days strived to show that he is a responsive leader. He transferred the senior bureaucrat in the higher education department and fired 47 officials from the national testing body. His government introduced a bill promising harsher punishment for leakers and fast-track courts to prosecute them. He announced a “high-powered task-force” to reform the testing regime. Yet beyond immediate damage control, little suggests a government deep in the throes of introspection. Its actions—such as continuing to pursue action against protesters despite promising not to— point to a strategy of quadrupling down on its never-apologise-never-explain instincts. Start with Mr Pradhan himself. His resignation letter portrays its author as the hapless victim of external forces. “Irregularities came to light” after the recent exam. Baddies “attempted to create obstacles and mislead students”. But he resigned anyway, to fend off “anti-national forces”. Allies gave the martyred minister a hero’s welcome in parliament two days later. “It happens,” an opposition leader said in sympathy. “Nothing happened,” Mr Pradhan shot back. Mr Modi’s plans to fix the system are also more show than substance. The “high-powered task-force” is a sequel to a “high-level committee” set up in 2024 after the same exam sprang leaks. The bill promising harsher penalties is a cover version of a 2024 law. The education ministry has been thrust upon a man already responsible for renewable energy, consumer affairs, food
and public distribution. Nothing says “top priority” like extreme multitasking. It is in its desire to clamp down on free speech that Mr Modi’s party is most itself. The government initially blocked the protest movement’s X account in May. It then blocked mobile internet around the protest area in central Delhi for several days, as well as a peer-to-peer messaging app. It told social- media networks to take down anti-Modi posts. A parliamentary committee has called a meeting with the main platforms to discuss, among other things, how to ensure “the government’s public order”. There is, however, one new move in the government’s response. It has realised that Instagram, where the protest movement gathered momentum, is the dominant social-media network of the day. On July 23rd Mr Modi posted his first-ever reel, or short-form video, on the platform. As Indians made mocking memes of the video, pliant media boasted that it had set “a new world record for the most views [of] an Instagram Reel within 24 hours”. Mr Modi has instructed ministers to enhance their presence on the platform. The party wheeled out a 42-year-old MP to give a speech to parliament in which she “borrowed Gen Z language” to say that Mr Modi “clocked” the problem. Young people describe the act of putting visible effort into appearing cool on social media as “aura farming”. It is a guaranteed way to have no aura at all.■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/asia/2026/07/30/narendra-modi-is-on-a-quest-to-regain- his-aura
China’s mightiest river is coming back from the brink Xi Jinping, pioneering venture capitalist The curious, never-ending crackdown on Hong Kong’s booksellers Sex, blood and Communist Party virtues
China’s mightiest river is coming back from the brink But eco-authoritarianism is not all roses Jul 30th 2026 THE MIGHTY Yangzi, running 6,300km from the Tibetan plateau to Shanghai, is sometimes known as China’s “mother river”. Yet it was not always treated with much respect. Sewage and industrial waste were poured into its waters. Millions of tonnes of fish were dragged out. Mega-dams clogged up its channels. It was all too much for some of the Yangzi’s most wondrous inhabitants. The baiji, a white-bellied, nearly sightless dolphin, is probably extinct; so is the gigantic, sword-nosed paddlefish. But not all the damage is permanent. Asia’s longest river is now making a remarkable comeback.