In What Does China Think?, Leonard, the head of the European Council on Foreign Relations since 2007, sets out what he sees as the key ideas that academics, officials and policy makers in Beijing are working on for the modernization of the administrative and political system. During a visit to China in 2007, when he was a visiting fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Leonard met with a number of prominent Chinese intellectuals, and talked with them about their vision for China in the next decade. The range of views he gathered was presented in an accessible and easy style. He also referred to experiments in local administration being undertaken in cities like Chongqing.

It was clear that there was a need for a brief overview of what Chinese thinkers themselves felt about the development of their own country. While there are many commentators outside China who set out, at some length, where China is, and what it needs to do, in order to modernize further in the future, there are very few Chinese writers who have any sort of coverage and exposure in the West. Yu Keping, from Peking University, and Wang Hui, from Tsinghua University, have both published works in English about where they see modern China standing. But beyond China specialists, their works have failed to reach a wider audience. Leonard, who already had a wide following because of broader work in the 1990s on foreign policy at the Foreign Policy Center, was able to leverage the interest he had created in his arguments over the EU to bring a new audience to look at the issues China faces. It is recognition of that therefore that Baroness Ashton may have chosen his book to start orientating herself as she deals with China in her new position.

Leonard explains various key challenges that China is currently facing—from a need to continuing satisfying its increasing energy needs, to doing something about its huge environmental issues, and continuing to grow its economy, at a time when the rest of the world is just emerging from global recession and only just beginning to post positive growth rates. In each of these areas, the EU is a good partner. It has some of the world's best environmental technology. It is China's largest trading partner. And it is seeking to work with China on energy efficiency issues.

But what should be a marriage made in heaven has all too often in the last few years been marred by frustration between both sides, with clear evidence of a lack of understanding about each other's needs. The EU remains frustrated at what it perceives as lack of market access in China. The rising trade deficit continues to be a political problem. For Chinese, the EU's lack of unity on key issues continues to confuse. Unlike the United States, it continues to fail to speak with one voice. It sways between being merely a huge free trade area on some interpretations, to being a union between separate sovereign states with far greater and more sweeping ambition. These internal uncertainties affect the way it presents itself to the world outside.

The issue of who now runs the EU as an organization is a good illustration of this. Is it the current President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso, who was appointed for a further five years last year? Is it its newly appointed President Herman Van Rompuy, whose position was announced alongside Baroness Ashton's last November? Is it the holder of the six monthly rotating presidency of the EU member states, currently the prime minister of Spain? Or is it the head of the European Parliament, under new powers granted in the Lisbon Treaty? There is still a lack of clarity over how these four relate to each other, who leads in which areas, and who, in the end, can be said to be in charge. Once more, for those outside the EU things are even more confusing. Who exactly will China be speaking to about important political and economic issues in the months and years ahead? And who does China accord the highest protocol to when they visit China—Rompuy, Barroso or someone else?

These are not the problems that can be solved overnight. For Ashton's specific area, having a cadre of China specialists in Europe might be a first step. That will need a great deal more detail than what is in Leonard's short book. With the best will in the world, his account served only as a guide for beginners, and not as something to be used as a basis for detailed policy making. The EU, pre-Lisbon Treaty, has already done a lot of work on this. There is plenty to work from. Now the challenge will be to address issues of disunity, lack of clarity, and lack of a united vision over policy making toward China and other countries, which existed before. For this, Ashton will not need a book called What Does China Think?, but something far trickier: What Does the EU Think of China? And, alas, that book remains unwritten.

The author is a senior research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in Britain

(The viewpoints in this article do not necessarily represent those of Beijing Review)