Social stratification, though an innate characteristic of any society, has become severe in both the U.S. and China. However, the sources of social stratification and the institutions that rectify it are different in China and the U.S.

The average Chinese person probably knows more about the United States than the average American knows about China. A closer look at modern China’s history and politics, however, will reveal that the two countries have a great deal in common.

The message congressional Republicans took from the 2016 elections was that Republican voters like Trump and hate virtually everyone else in the Republican Party. They fear that if they ever break rank with him they’ll be voted out in the next election. Few politicians got very far by blaming the electorate or scolding them for their bad choices.

It would be unfortunate if the US, as the leading power of globalization, views the changing political and economic landscape as undermining its long-held domination of the world and therefore begins to force changes in the course of globalization. The result would be chaos, and instability for all nations whether or not liberal democracy survives the process.

The strong tides of anti-establishment anger have shaken politics to its core in a number of Western democracies, as symbolized by the British vote to leave the European Union and the rise of Donald Trump in the United States. Authoritarian capitalism, on the other hand, usually pretends to be meritocracy offering competent governance and economic opportunity for all. In reality, it entrenches corrupt oligarchies that are answerable to no one and that employ ultra-nationalism as the legitimating credo of their monopoly on power.

In many Western democracies, this is a year of revolt against elites. The success of the Brexit campaign in Britain, Donald Trump’s unexpected capture of the Republican Party in the United States, and populist parties’ success in Germany and elsewhere strike many as heralding the end of an era.

“Democracy” hasn’t always meant free elections, and it’s never meant nivana. China must cherish its traditional political wisdom and governance framework, and gradually improve its political institutions, in order to render them more appropriate to China's modernization. History tells us that blindly copying Western democracies is a path to disaster.

Whether Trump wins the election or not, we are seeing the failure of the U.S. democracy. Even if Meanwhile, Trump forced the Americans to face the inconvenient truth of their democracy and the dark side of the American society. The discrimination against the minority groups, the disparity between the rich and the poor and the money politics will not disappear just because the mainstream chooses to ignore them.

American democracy boasts of universal representation of social segments, but in reality it is money that talks. Neither the Republican Party nor the Democrats can claim that to have served the interests of the working class well, resulting in a crisis of political institutions that need major surgery to survive.