“In the past three years, since President Trump came to office, the word ‘China model’ has taken on a whole different significance,” said University of Michigan political science professor Yuen Yuen Ang, who defined the China model as autocracy with democratic characteristics, at least until 2012 and Xi’s presidency. “It has come to mean China as an ideological competitor of the West. It has now become threatening, intimidating, and a sort of like, it’s either the West or China.”