“…Indeed, in recent studies, the concept of “authoritarian populism” has emerged, pertaining to political phenomena in hybrid regimes and emerging democracies that share the core tenets of populism (namely, the construction of “the people”) while describing idiosyncratic trajectories distinct from that of populism in fully‐realized Western democracies (e.g., Ivanou, ; Mamonova, ; Oliker, ; Reicher, ). According to Mamonova, authoritarian populism consists of “a coercive, disciplinary state, a rhetoric of national interests, populist unity between ‘the people’ and an authoritarian leader, nostalgia for ‘past glories’ and confrontations with ‘others’ at home and/or abroad” (:562)—a definition highly relevant to the understanding of populism in the context of China.…”