gunnut,
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However, I don't see China ever be as democratic as the US. The culture is just too different. American culture is unique in that the government derives power from the people in a elected representative government. All other governments, no matter how democratic, gives power to the people, rather than the other way around.
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i personally think you're overplaying this idea of culture a tad. let us remember that the american government HAS given power to the people REPEATEDLY in its history. from wealthy white protestant males to wealthy white males to white males to males (under certain circumstances) to females and finally to everyone.
and in many of these cases it was not a suddenly huge wellspring of support- it was a top-down decision.
as for china not being as democratic as the US, i don't know about that. taiwan does an awful good job, and i mean it in both ways. the taiwanese put the z in democrazy.
i know what you're getting at, though, in america the state formed largely after the nation formed. does this more democratic make? it's hard to judge, simply because among liberal democracies it is difficult to say if one system is "better" or not. instead, we political scientists find that democracies fit the circumstances. for the most part, presidential democracies arise from nations that experience revolutions and parliamentary democracies arise from nations that undergo political evolution.