The only shop I'd ever been to anywhere in the world where the shop assistant did not seem impressed by the sight of dollar bills was in the eastern Chinese port city of Ningbo, sometime in 2004.

The lady disdainfully waved off my money as I tried to pay for a belt and only grudgingly showed me to the currency exchange in the mall. China continues to confound. At the beginning of its reforms, western experts were certain that as the country prospered, it would seek to become more like the West.

Well, China has prospered but it is obviously not sold on westernisation - at least not at the level of ideas.

Professor Oloruntimehin, my Marxism teacher in graduate school once told our class that one enduring feature of China through the ages has been its capacity to absorb (Sinification was his word, meaning to make Chinese) all the invaders who felt that they had conquered it.

The Chinese story continues to unfold. And rather than bend the country to its will, the West may yet find out that it is China that would re-create the world in its own image...