This study proposes the concept of "learning authoritarianism" to discuss the policy learning process of the Chinese government, which includes three elements, namely, policy drawing, diffusion, and adaptation. First, policy drawing denotes that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) learns appropriate experiences or practices from other countries. Once the central government decides to learn a certain policy, it will then use national power to implement policy diffusion. Finally, policy adaptation, that is, local adjustments of policy content, is conducted in accordance with local conditions to strengthen the flexibility of policy implementation and give feedback on relevant experiences to the central government to assist it in further amending relevant laws and regulations. We use the "double innovation" (shuang chuang) policy of the Xi Jinping period as a case study and discuss the cases of Fujian and Guangdong to elucidate local policy adaptation and feedback to the central government. In the operation of "learning authoritarianism," the central government strengthened its control over the process of policy implementation and allocated local governments with limited autonomy for innovation.