Quest for Modernity and the Tides of History } 761
In both the Wilhelmine and CCP states, elections were not designed to
allow the people to remove one elite and install another to govern them—
Joseph Schumpeter’s famous definition of democracy. Rather, elections were
intended and designed merely to improve the quality of administration by
self-selected rulers. The Wilhelmine state had a national legislative body con-
stituted by election based on universal male suffrage and exercising certain
powers of legislation. But the government was responsible not to the legislature
but to the monarch, whose court was packed with high aristocrats. Historian
Richard Evans calls the Wilhelmine set-up “a pseudo-constitutional semi-
absolutist” system.^4 In the PRC, the electoral process is still modeled after
that of the USSR. The nomination process is controlled by the CCP and fil-
ters out oppositional elements. Legislative bodies produced by elections are
guided by embedded party organs and serve, at most, as sounding boards for
proposed legislation. Usually People’s Congresses function as rubber stamps
for decisions made by party organs. The purpose of elections is to strengthen
and improve CCP rule, not to provide a mechanism for the Chinese people to
genuinely choose and change their rulers.
Another similarity between the Wilhelmine and current CCP elite is
fear of rebellion. Germany’s working class was then large, growing rapidly,
discontented, and enamored with ideas of democracy, socialism, and revo-
lution. The examples of 1789, 1848, and the Paris uprising of 1871 loomed
large, as did the myth of a general strike that would topple capitalism. The
Wilhelmine regime lived in constant fear of a workers’ rebellion, and this
was a key reason for its highly repressive nature. China’s situation is paradox-
ical. On the one hand, as noted in chapter 1, attitudinal surveys among the
Chinese populace—including middle-class professionals and private-sector
entrepreneurs who modernization theory indicates should be supporters of
democratization—show remarkably little support for basic regime change.
Chinese public opinion, across virtually all social groups, supports contin-
uing authoritarian CCP rule. Most Chinese have apparently been convinced
that liberal democracy would not work for China. There is great discontent in
China. In 2012, there were reportedly around 150,000 protests over all sorts
of complaints: state seizure of property, police brutality, environmental deg-
radation, wage and pension disputes, official corruption, etc. But the anger
underlying these demonstrations does not seem to translate into a desire
for regime change. Nonetheless, CCP leaders seem transfixed by the danger
of a popular uprising against them. The trauma of the 1989–1991 upheavals,
the intense CCP concern for internal stability, and careful cultivation of the
PLA as ultimate guardian of the CCP state strongly suggest that CCP leaders,
like those of Wilhelmine Germany, fear uprising. There seems to be a sense
among CCP leaders that public opinion might shift rapidly, and that events
might quickly mobilize diverse sectors of society, and demands escalate, con-
fronting them with another 6-4-like challenge. The entire internal security