That is prompting a big, uncomfortable, shift in western ideas about it.
Many of these young Chinese started returning home in the 1920s and 1930s, imbued with Western ideas about modern design.
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Their fierce interpretation of Islam was not to his taste: Mr Masoud had been brought up with western ideas of personal freedom.
While many acquaintances in China are much more interested in Western ideas, he still thinks a lot about the country and its culture.
But Chinese students are no longer willing, as they were then, to listen unquestioningly to anyone bringing Western ideas to the classroom, he says.
There have been one or two nods towards Western ideas recently.
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But this and other traditions are under pressure as a young generation more inclined towards Western culture and ideas grows up.
At the present time the US has the cart before the horse like all western nations and where the ideas phase at the fundamental level is not even part of the innovation chain.
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My job is to teach undergraduates to think critically and express themselves articulately while introducing them to some of the big ideas and seminal texts of the Western academic tradition.
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But, this is not so surprising as many Western firms also owe their historical origins to the ideas of others.
The copycat era of look-alike western sites in China will fade and more original ideas tailored to the local culture will flourish as the Chinese market develops and grows more sophisticated.
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Also, an initiative -- related initiative of putting entrepreneurs throughout the region together with universities but also with one another so that the ideas that are created in labs, be it in the United States but around the Western Hemisphere, can get to market more effectively -- again, underscoring the importance of competitiveness in the Western Hemisphere.
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